Matt Maher: Premier League providing tension from top to bottom
With just under two months remaining, there remains a strong chance this could be the most exciting finish to a Premier League season ever.
Even the most cynical observer must admit it’s been unusually unpredictable to this point. Look at the table and it is impossible to pick out a team who don’t still have something substantial to play for.
Chelsea might currently be the very epitome of mid-table, sitting 11th with a record of 10 wins, nine draws and 10 defeats. But they are Chelsea and they are still only five points off Villa in seventh.
“They (Chelsea) have to keep fighting for Europe,” observed Unai Emery when assessing his club’s fellow contenders earlier this week. He’s not wrong.
Villa now also sit above Liverpool, another perennial Champions League qualifier who everyone assumed – like Chelsea – would eventually click into gear and reassert the status quo. Perhaps both still will but they are cutting it mighty fine, with Newcastle, Brighton and Brentford showing little sign of slacking the pace they have shown all season. Villa can now also be included on the list of upstarts after their dramatic transformation under Emery. A year ago with nine matches to play under Steven Gerrard they were ninth but 12 points behind seventh-placed West Ham and 14 clear of the relegation zone.
Leicester, Southampton and Crystal Palace were also in a group of clubs who knew the only thing they were chasing till the end of the campaign was prize money. Flash forward 12 months and the trio make up a third of the most congested scrap for survival in years. Who is going down? Who knows? Last year there were was only one team (Everton) within three points of 18th position. This year there are six.
Then, at the top, you have Arsenal, those surprise leaders who at the point everyone expected they would start choking having reeled off seven wins in a row. And yet Manchester City still sit there, close enough to pounce if they stumble.
Is the Premier League reshaped for good? Maybe not, considering the previous consistency of Big Six clubs in rebounding strongly from below par seasons. But in the here and now, it’s a whole lot of fun to watch.
