Cup Final Madness

What a mad weekend of football. The headlines will go to Birmingham, specifically the comical fashion that the winning goal was scored. Elsewhere though there were surprises with West Ham scoring 3 against a continuously improving Liverpool side and Wolves laying in a 4-0 thumping of Blackpool, a team that managed to beat Champions League contenders Spurs not so very long ago.

All in all it is turning out to be a very topsy turvy season, yet despite all this the printed press still resort to type by predicting every win or loss as either a season-ender or a platform that a team can “kick on” from. This just hasn’t happened and I genuinely think we are going to have to wait until the very end of the season to see what is what. It looks as though the title is going to go one of two ways, but it looks certain that the ribbons around the trophy at the end of the season are going to bed red.

At the other end of the table, West Ham look as though they are improving, with the added quality of Thomas Hitzlsperger clearly giving them a boost. I think that West Ham will stay up this season but it will be thankful to poor form elsewhere I think. My prediction for the three teams to go down is West Brom, Wigan and Wolves. Wolves will be the closest to surviving and their battle to retain Premiership status will be with West Ham and, I fear, Blackpool. Blackpool, after a wonderful start to the season are now beginning to signs of frailty yet they are still able to pull a result out of the hat, as demonstrated against Spurs.

The fight for a Champions League spot is also hotting up, with my prediction of the top four being United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs. The reason that I think that can be broken down into two parts; the top two places and third/ fourth spot. I believe United will win the title over Arsenal as they have the experience to do so, as well as the points on the board. Arsenal, over the coming weeks, will focus an awful lot of energy on the Champions League clash with Barcelona and this, coupled with the defeat at Wembley yesterday and the injuries to Fabregas and Van Persie, could mean that the struggle domestically. United, if they can get through two big games against Chelsea and Liverpool without losing too many points, will continue to do enough to stay at the top of the table until the season finishes.

As for third and fourth, I think it will be Chelsea followed by Spurs. Chelsea, all but written off for a top four finish as little as a week ago, now have the opportunity to go third if they win their games in hand. I am not saying that this will be the case but the games to go compare favourably to those of Man City and Spurs. City will run Spurs close for the final Champions League position but will drop too many points in games that they should be winning.

The final stage of the season is shaping up to be just as intriguing as the rest of it has been, and one thing that is for certain is that it is definitely too early to write teams off. Things will definitely change between now and the end of the season.