Final day of the season? Isn\u2019t it? Hmm? Permutations? As It Stands tables? News of a vital goal filtering through from elsewhere? Isn\u2019t it? Hmm? At least one meaningless game between two mid-table sides inexplicably ending up 5-4? Marvellous.<\/p>\n
Ten simultaneous games, each impacting upon the others as the final formalities of the season are concluded. It\u2019s always great<\/strong><\/a>. Sure, the title race might not have made it, but thanks to Tottenham\u2019s inability to finish their dinner and absolute insistence on always being persistently and ludicrously Tottenham about absolutely everything, we do at least have a relegation battle to be decided among the overwrought FINAL-DAY DRAMA.<\/p>\n We thank them, though. For it spares us all having to go through the charade of pretending anyone outside the specific clubs involved really cares much either way about the Race for Europe.<\/p>\n We\u2019re also now fascinated by what happens in Crystal Palace v Arsenal \u2013 a game that pits one team focused entirely on a different match a few days later against a team that hasn\u2019t slept for three days. It will either be the best or worst game you\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n But it doesn\u2019t make the cut here. Not on final day. Not ahead of this lot.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Game to watch: Tottenham v Everton<\/p>\n James Maddison described the situation as \u2018embarrassing\u2019 but here we are. Spurs are in genuine danger of relegation on the final day of the Premier League season<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Sure, they finished 17th last season with the same number of points they currently have to their name this season. But last season they had been safe for months thanks to there being three rather than this season\u2019s mere two teams cut entirely adrift at the bottom of the table.<\/p>\n And while it was overplayed as mitigation given the sheer scale of the collapse in their form, there was also a clear and undeniable prioritising of the Europa League once safety was pretty much secured by a three-game winning run in February.<\/p>\n The only mitigation for Spurs this year is another catastrophic injury list, yet even that has its own counter-mitigation that Spurs already had a catastrophic injury list in January and decided to sit on their hands lest they be accused of panic. How\u2019s that working out, lads?<\/p>\n Perhaps the most damning element of Spurs\u2019 failure to either back or sack Thomas Frank in January, with results that could still be existentially disastrous if Sunday goes wrong, was on the right wing.<\/p>\n The decision to sell Brennan Johnson for good money early in the window was out of character for Spurs and actually encouraging<\/strong><\/a>. Nothing he\u2019d done for Spurs earlier in the season nor for Palace since suggests this was a mistake. But watching Mohammad Kudus suffer a serious injury from which he is yet to return in the very next game and yet failing to even really try to replace either of them in the three remaining weeks of January will feature prominently in the post-mortem should the worst happen.<\/p>\n And, frankly, even if it doesn\u2019t. Should Spurs scrape their way to safety this weekend there really is still no case that either their Chief Arsenal Fan Vinai Venkatesham or sporting director Johan Lange should be spared the boot as a result after overseeing a season of unthinkable ineptitude.<\/p>\n The effects of January\u2019s disastrous attempt at looking like sensible grown-ups when panic was absolutely the correct emotional state are still being felt now, with the clear improvement Roberto De Zerbi has brought to the team in general still massively limited by the sheer dearth of both numbers and quality in the Tottenham attack.<\/p>\n He will once again here have little choice but to field a front three of Richarlison, Mathys Tel and the abysmal Randal Kolo Muani, and hope against hope that when he turns to a half-fit Maddison midway through the second half it isn\u2019t in desperation.<\/p>\n Maddison\u2019s cameos in the last two games against Leeds and Chelsea have shown what Spurs have missed in his absence, but are also damning of the players Spurs do have available. Spurs have looked far, far better going forward in the 20-odd minutes he\u2019s managed in each game despite the fact he is still clearly and understandably miles off it in terms of overall fitness and match sharpness.<\/p>\n Spurs need only a point to guarantee safety (unless West Ham stick 12 past Leeds, which feels like a level of Spursy misfortune even we\u2019re willing to cheerfully dismiss) and really should be able to get it against a team that has rather run out of puff in recent weeks. Everton haven\u2019t won since early March to see realistic hopes of European nights at the Hill-Dickinson next season all but disappear.<\/p>\n But you absolutely would not guarantee it. A decent start feels absolutely vital for Spurs. Even the tentatively improved RDZ iteration of this team still has the most fragile and shallow reserves of confidence imaginable. They are still unable to react positively to any setback whatsoever, and the danger here is that the setback doesn\u2019t even need to come from within their own game this time.<\/p>\n Under De Zerbi, Spurs have visibly wilted after going behind at both Sunderland<\/strong><\/a> and Chelsea<\/strong><\/a> having been doing absolutely fine before conceding, and went from cruise control to a clear and rattled second best after Leeds\u2019 equaliser<\/strong><\/a> at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n You do feel Spurs must strike the first blow here to settle their own nerves and avoid giving any encouragement to their rivals.<\/p>\n You can just imagine the noise a tension-addled misery-pit of a stadium will make should news of a West Ham goal filter through. You can just imagine the impact it will have on those nervous nellies on the pitch.<\/p>\n There are nine possible combinations of results from the two games that will settle relegation, and eight of those possible combinations leave Spurs safe. But this is Spurs, and you do just wonder if they don\u2019t have one last catastrophe left in them to top the lot.<\/p>\n If they lose as they absolutely definitely could, it\u2019s over to\u2026<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Team to watch: West Ham<\/p>\n It\u2019s out of their hands. They face what is, on current form, a far tougher test than Everton in the shape of Leeds<\/strong><\/a>. But they have a chance, and after the abject capitulation at Newcastle last weekend<\/strong><\/a>, that was all they could possibly hope for here.<\/p>\n They will have to hope that Leeds are in cigars and flip-flops mode, because under normal circumstances outside of the unique cauldron of the final day, it would be almost impossible at this time to make a decent case for West Ham, after three straight defeats of assorted levels of dreadful, to get a win over a Leeds side unbeaten in eight games.<\/p>\n Leeds had nothing to play for last weekend either, and still produced a win over a Brighton side with everything to play for<\/strong><\/a>. We\u2019re not really sure this Leeds team is one currently capable of rolling over and simply donating victory to any opponent at this time, but surely \u2013 surely \u2013 West Ham will at least this time deliver an all-or-nothing performance for an all-or-nothing occasion having so miserably failed to do so at Newcastle last time out.<\/p>\n Striking the first blow and piling the pressure on a deeply fragile and impossibly vulnerable Tottenham has to be the plan. It\u2019s long-shot territory, but it is perfectly possible the cards fall West Ham\u2019s way if they can just take care of their own business.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manager to watch: Pep Guardiola<\/p>\n For one final time \u2013 as with Fergie, Wenger and Klopp before him, it\u2019s simply inconceivable to imagine him in charge of anyone else in the league<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Pep Guardiola will take to a Premier League touchline.<\/p>\n There is now nothing riding on the game itself against Europa League winners Aston Villa<\/strong><\/a>, City having failed to challenge Arsenal to avoid one last banana skin on their victory lap by labouring to a draw (even that undeserved) at Bournemouth in midweek.<\/p>\n A domestic cup double with a new-look side in transition means Guardiola\u2019s final season can\u2019t be considered an outright failure, as such, but it\u2019s not quite a successful one either. Not by the standards he has set in a decade of dominance in this league. At its height, it was a domination that stretched to six league titles in seven seasons, often with 95+ points as the price of admission just to challenge them.<\/p>\n