Skirmish to escape dreaded drop

Last week, Manchester United secured the championship for a record 19th time with a 1-1 draw at Blackburn Rovers.

In next season’s Champions League United will be joined by Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal who are also sure of finishing in the top four with only tomorrow’s remaining match to go.

Two places in the Europa League, will go to Stoke City, as FA Cup finalists, and Birmingham City, the League Cup winners.

The other place will go to Tottenham Hotspur who need to win their home match against rele-gation-haunted Birmingham City to make sure of fifth place.

Liverpool would overtake Spurs, to whom they lost at Anfield last week, if they win at Aston Villa and Tottenham fail to register a victory at White Hart Lane.

Fulham will probably make it a quartet of English clubs in the Europa League after UEFA granted the Premier League an extra slot via the Respect Fair Play ranking.

The Cottagers are the only side not to have a player dismissed throughout the season. Only Blackpool can challenge Fulham’s position − they are two points outside the total amassed by the Londoners in the fair play list.

West Ham United lost their status in the Premier League after blowing a 2-0 lead against Wigan last week to lose 3-2. They’ll play in the Championship next season and manager Avram Grant will have to look for a new job as he was fired at the end of the match.

Three clubs are currently on 39 points – Birmingham (-20 goals), Blackpool (-21) and Wigan (-22).

The other two teams struggling to avoid the drop are Wolves and Blackburn on 40 points. To-morrow, they clash at Molineux.

Blackburn have a better goal difference of -14 as Wolves’ average reads -19.

Blackburn and Wolves gained valuable points in their last outing − the Rovers earned a home draw against champions Manchester United and Wolves beat Sunderland away.

A draw at Molineux tomorrow could still not be enough if two of the sides behind Wolves and Blackburn in the standings win their respective matches.

Meanwhile, the other trio of strugglers will be playing away from home tomorrow − Wigan at Stoke, Blackpool at champions Manchester United and Birmingham at Tottenham.

Stoke will be a tough nut to crack in front of their own fans but Wigan showed great deter-mination to hit back from two goals down against West Ham in their previous match.

Manchester United could be tempted to rest their players ahead of the Champions League final today week but it would still be difficult for Blackpool to clinch all three points tomorrow as the Old Trafford crowd will be in party mood to mark the club’s record 19th league title.

Fixtures

Premier League (all tomorrow: 17.00)
Aston Villa-Liverpool (3-0)
Bolton-Man. City (0-1)
Everton-Chelsea (1-1)
Fulham-Arsenal (1-2)
Man. United-Blackpool (3-2)
Newcastle-West Brom (1-3)
Stoke City-Wigan (2-2)
Tottenham-Birmingham (1-1)
West Ham-Sunderland (0-1)
Wolves-Blackburn (0-3)

Note: In brackets results first round.