This year’s Premiership title race just refuses to lay down and die.

Every week, just when you think it’s all over, the football gods decide to shake it up again and keep things interesting.

Last weekend it looked like it was all sown up when Arsenal failed to beat Liverpool in a match that featured the most exciting 12 minutes of injury time you are ever likely to see. Manchester United were laughing.

On Tuesday, however, United failed to open up the expected nine-point gap when they were held to a goalless draw at Newcastle United. Arsenal, if not laughing, were at least quietly tittering in the corner.

Roll on Wednesday night and Arsenal vs Tottenham Hotspur. At 3-1 up, Arsene Wenger’s team looked on course to narrow the gap, but then conspired to draw 3-3, putting us back to square one and returning the smiles to Manchester.

Interestingly, as these twists and turns have kept coming thick and fast, few people have been giving much thought to Chelsea.

But Carlo Ancelotti’s lads have been plugging away, quietly winning their games, and are now, like Arsenal, just six points away from United. At least as I write this they are.

Under normal circumstances, a six-point lead at this stage with just five games to go would be all but insurmountable. But the biggest twists of all could still be in store because United have to travel to Arsenal next week before taking on Chelsea at Old Trafford a week later.

Should United lose both those games (unlikely but not entirely impossible) that would be the six-point lead essentially gone and, assuming all three teams win their other games, it would leave them all identical points come the end of the season. A total of 79 each by my calculations.*

Of course, that is a very hypothetical situation, as all three contenders are perfectly capable of throwing away points when you least expect it.

And given the way this season has gone so far, we should have learned by now to expect the unexpected. Always.

So after everything we’ve been through, after all the ups and downs, we could conceivably end up in a situation where the top three teams in the Premier League are separated only by goal difference.

And, even in that area, while United currently have the edge, those two hypothetical ‘defeats’ could change that picture too.

Ultimately, the title is still in United’s hands. Sir Alex Ferguson knows what he has to do in his remaining five matches to secure the title and I am fairly sure he has a cunning plan for doing just that.

But at least things are, at least for now, too close to call. And that’s the way we neutrals like it.

* Disclaimer: These figures are based rough calculations jotted down on the back of a coffee-stained envelope and could be wildly inaccurate.

Out of Toon

Normally I have maximum respect for Newcastle United supporters. They are passionate, faithful and know their football. In short, the Toon Army are what I like to call ‘real’ fans.

Which makes the way the treated Michael Owen last week all the more surprising.

The former England player came on for the last 10 minutes of Manchester United’s game against Newcastle at St James’s Park and was greeted by an overwhelming outpouring of hatred from most of the 50,000 fans in the stadium.

He was subjected to a barrage of boos the likes of which you would only expect to hear if John Terry gatecrashed Wayne Bridge’s wedding reception.

Now I appreciate the circumstances of Owen’s departure were far from ideal. After four injury-hit seasons at Newcastle, the last of which saw them relegated to the Championship, he left on a free transfer and later joined Manchester United.

As I said, far from ideal.

However, did the Newcastle fans really expect him to stay behind and play his football in the Championship? Did they expect him to accept a lower grade of football purely on the basis of guilt?

It’s almost as if they believe it was Owen and Owen alone who was to blame for the club’s relegation, when the reality was it had far more to do with the erratic, immature ownership of Mike Ashley, who I personally wouldn’t trust to run a bath, let alone a football club.

I’m not denying the fact that Owen played only 79 games for Newcastle during his time at the club was disappointing. It certainly was. But his return of 30 goals from those games was not a total disaster by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes, he cost a lot of money in transfer fees and wages, but I am sure he earned the club a few pounds too in shirt sales, endorsements and increased season tickets.

I can only assume the Newcastle fans feel he should have stuck around at a relegated club that was in complete turmoil and didn’t even have a manager to, in some way, repay the ‘debt’ for his injury-plagued spell at the club.

Well, that just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen with better players than Owen and it doesn’t happen with worse players than Owen. It just doesn’t happen with modern players, full stop.

At the time, the striker was probably thinking to himself that he only had a season or two of football left in the tank. And he was also possibly thinking there was still an outside chance of making last summer’s World Cup squad.

And that drove him to take a gamble and leave Newcastle without even having another club lined up.

It could have gone quite horribly wrong, and he could have found himself without a club at all. In fact, as I recall, his agents were even reduced to printing a promotional brochure about the player to try and get him a game.

If Sir Alex hadn’t come in for him there is every chance his career could have ended there and then. Instead, he went on to play for two years at the top level, although injuries have again limited his appearances.

Having said all that, if it makes Newcastle fans feel better to have themselves a scapegoat for their season from hell, then so be it.

I just expected a little bit more from a bunch of supporters who traditionally show great understanding of the realities of modern football.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com