Hold the back page: the battle for third, fourth and fifth is on!

The Guardian

14-04-2025

The Scottish Grand National, the Hell of the North that is the Paris-Roubaix bicycle race and the Masters at Augusta were among the sporting spectacles which Football Daily watched over the weekend while also keeping an eye on goings-on in the Premier League. And while we are happy to applaud the spirited efforts of also-rans such as – deep breath – Our Power, Grozni, Rock My Way, Mads Pederson, Wout van Aert, Florian Vermesch, Patrick Reed, Scottie Scheffler and Im Sung-jae, our interest in these not-football contests was certainly not piqued by the prospect of seeing who would finish third, fourth and fifth.
Sadly, with six rounds of fixtures left to go and nothing else left to play for in the Best League In The World™, the eight(ish)-team rumble for the three remaining places in next season's Bigger Cup that won't be occupied by Liverpool or Arsenal is the only remaining source of jeopardy in a top-flight campaign that isn't so much ending with a bang as with an uncontrollable, contagious yawn Match of the Day viewers will have seen Newcastle substitute Anthony Gordon make no attempt to disguise as his side heaped more embarrassment on Manchester United. Surfing a tidal wave of confidence against a side who look marooned at sea in a rowboat without any oars, Newcastle's easy win leaves them with a midweek game in hand and in pole position to take third place behind Arsenal, unless they happen to overtake a Gunners side whose largesse in the face of victory has now seen them cough up 16 points from winning positions in a title 'race' they are currently losing by 13. Still, though … refs!
Still in third with their top-five destiny very much in their own hands, Nottingham Forest have chosen a bad time to wobble, although it is a measure of how surprisingly good they've been this season that losing twice in a row – for only the third time in a campaign many predicted to be a struggle against the drop – has prompted overwrought talk of a crisis at the City Ground. Making up the top five, Manchester City somehow contrived to make very heavy and light work of their match against Crystal Palace, due in no small part to the heroic efforts of a player the club has deemed surplus to requirements, even if his can-do attitude was instrumental in snatching an easy victory from the jaws of what initially looked like ending in another ignominious defeat. 'My job is to play good football and help this team win games,' said Kevin De Bruyne, who may be forced to sit out City's next match with the back-knack incurred from carrying his teammates for long periods of Saturday afternoon.
Still knocking on the door of qualification for next season's Bigger Cup with varying degrees of volume, both Chelsea and Brighton had to settle for underwhelming draws, with the charisma vacuum that is Enzo Maresca further incurring the wrath of an already sceptical Stamford Bridge faithful by appearing to blame them for the two goals scored against his side by Ipswich Town. Meanwhile at Southampton, Aston Villa, a team currently knocking on more doors than a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses, maintained their hopes of making the top five with the obligatory win over Southampton. Lose their crunch match on Monday night and either Bournemouth or Fulham can probably kiss their faint hopes of Bigger Cup football next season goodbye. Make no mistake, with just 62 games of the season remaining, the battle for fourth place down to ninth is really starting to hot up.
Please enjoy this beautiful segue into our live offering: join Rob Smyth for piping hot MBM coverage of Bournemouth 1-1 Fulham, with kick-off at 8pm BST.
'Every time' – When asked if he would celebrate Wolves' fourth consecutive Premier League victory with Tin, Old Gold manager Vítor Pereira was all-too-happy to live up to his 'first the points, then the pints' flag at Molineux. 'Work is work, but after the work we need to celebrate together. I need to feel the energy of these people and be part of the family,' added the Portuguese, who was later spotted in a Wolverhampton Wetherspoons pub, hugging and backslapping locals before getting stuck into some old-fashioned japes in front of the fruit machine.
'Is Football Daily, or whatever you are now called, losing its touch? I'm familiar with Barrrrrl, Basle and Baaaarl from previous Fivers but you referenced Basel four times on Friday. Where is this mythical place?' – Neale Redington.
'Regarding Conmebol's suggestion to expand the men's World Cup finals to 64 teams, I have an idea. Why stop there? How about 211 teams qualify for the finals? Now, that would be unwieldy, and I don't know what country could host a tournament that large. So they could hold the round-robin stages locally, with teams from, I don't know, perhaps the same continent grouped together. And then the top finishers from each local group, maybe 16 total, could all meet somewhere for the final rounds. Then, no one would suffer the pain and humiliation of missing out' – Dave Kramer (and 1,056 others).
'In Ben Fisher's excellent article on Truro City, he quoted a potential 868-mile round-trip to Carlisle should the Tinners get promoted and the Cumbrians return to the National League. That journey is relatively easy, traffic congestion permitting, once you hit the M5 then the M6. A longer and more difficult round trip of 902 miles – M5, M42, M1 and A1(M) – would face Truro should Gateshead fail to secure promotion to the EFL via the playoffs' – Deryck Hall.
Send letters to [e-mail]. Today's prizeless letter o' the day winner is … Deryck Hall. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
The latest Football Weekly pod: Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Mark Pougatch and Sam Dalling to talk about Manchester United, Swindon players being very mean to a Bradford City defender and Tranmere turning into Brazil 1970 for 12 minutes.
Eddie Howe remains under watchful eyes in hospital, but his assistant Jason Tindall trilled that his boss has texted congratulations after Newcastle humped Manchester United on Sunday. 'I'm sure it has lifted his spirits,' the stand-in beamed. Under-fire keeper André Onana was rested for that game.
A delay in the diagnosis of a rare heart infection 'did not more than minimally contribute' to the death of Kevin Campbell, a coroner has found. The former Arsenal striker died aged 54 last year.
Matildas star Mary Fowler is a doubt for her side's Asian Cup campaign after suffering knee knack for Manchester City in the Women's FA Cup. More pain followed for her side as they went down 2-0 to local rivals United, who are through to defend their trinkets against Chelsea, who pipped Liverpool at the last in the other semi, next month.
Virgil van Dijk is keeping fingers on lips about any potential new deal he might have cooking on a low heat on Merseyside, but the Dutchman, whose header lengthened Liverpool's lead in the title race, tooted that he was proud to be 'closer to our dreams' yet 'emotional because of the Hillsborough anniversary'. Tuesday marks the 36th anniversary of the disaster.
Real Madrid's Luka Modric turns 40 in September. What next for the Croatia maestro? Five more years? Coaching badges? Punditry? Bespoke line of hairbands? Or did your tea leaves somehow have minority owner of Swansea in there?
Unai Emery, unsurprisingly, wants Aston Villa to muster a comeback for the ages against PSG. 'We want to write here the history,' roared the Spaniard. 'We need to use Villa Park like a fortress. We have felt it a lot of times. We have to believe.'
Uh oh Ange. More pressure on Mr Postecoglou may be on the way after fifth-bottom Wolves hopped to just two points behind Spurs with an ever-more-comprehensive-than-scoreline-suggests 4-2 victory.
Put the Fizzy Vimto down, Brendan … Ianis Hagi offered Rangers fans rare delight as his 96th-minute equaliser at Aberdeen meant Celtic had to put the title-winning tea set back in the cupboard for at least another round of league games.
Kylian Mbappé's innovative flying stamp on Antonio Blanco resulted in a massively deserved first-half red card against Alavés. Manu Sánchez then evened up the available manpower with a rake down the back of Vinícius Jr's calf as Real Madrid were relieved to emerge with a 1-0 win.
Enzo Maresca didn't like the 'environment' swirling around Stamford Bridge as his side could only manage a draw – and may have done well to get that much – against nearly-doomed Ipswich. Jacob Steinberg reckons picking a scrap with Chelsea fans may not bode well.
Bayern Munich warmed up for Wednesday's Champions League barn-burner at Inter by passing up the spoils late on in Der Klassiker. Andy Brassell assesses the State of the München.
Are Manchester City back? No, but maybe they are just another very good team, writes Jonathan Wilson.
Claudio Ranieri's unbeaten record in Rome derbies was salvaged by Matias Soulé's second-half leveller for Roma against Lazio … even though it was the first derby the retiring manager has failed to win. Nicky Bandini salutes Ranieri and the (provisional) end of an era.
Mohamed Salah was a lively old sock in Liverpool's victory over West Ham after a few recent semi-anonymous displays. And his new contract will make Arne Slot's expected rebuilding job over the summer a lot less fraught, Jonathan Wilson chinstrokes.
More from Mr Wilson: in praise of Vítor Pereira's current mood music at Wolves … until the next time it all goes pear-shaped at Molineux.
USA USA USA MLS MLS MLS talking points talking points talking points.
There were nine Premier League games over the weekend. And yet here are 10 talking points from them.
Culture corner: here's Matt Barton's review of a new hoity-toit thee-ay-tarrrr production of David Peace's brilliant Bill Shankly-based 2013 novel, Red or Dead.
Ruben Amorim trains with the rest of the Portugal squad at the Ponte Preta training camp in Campinas, Brazil before the 2014 World Cup. Amorim made the last of his 14 international caps at the tournament, in a 2-1 win over Ghana, but Portugal never made it past the group stage and were eliminated on goal difference.