Thrills and drama awaits on unprecedented final day
While the Premier League giddily hopes for final-day excitement to match that of the Championship, there is still a prospect that some at the very top of the game don’t want to consider. Some clubs currently have to put it out of their minds.
As it stands, the decisive moment in the relegation battle - and maybe even the Champions League chase came in the very first half of Project Restart, and due to a failure of technology that far superseded anything to do with VAR. That was when Hawkeye failed to work for Orjan Nyland "save" of Oliver Norwood’s free
kick, having carried it over his line. The subsequent 0-0 draw is what currently has Aston Villa just ahead of Watford outside the relegation zone, and may well have stunted Sheffield United’s Champions League surge.
Villa themselves could point to the possibility that VAR had already failed them just before that, since they might have had a penalty for a challenge on Anwar El-Ghazi.
That first day back might prove so monumental, in more ways than one, as we ready ourselves for the last day.
These are the kinds of complications and what-ifs that all of Manchester United, Chelsea, Leicester City, Villa, Watford and Bournemouth have to forget about to maintain focus for this last late push.
This is nevertheless what the 2019-20 season will be remembered for, way beyond anything else.
Never before has a single campaign been so influenced by what’s happened off the pitch. That very sentence feels a massive understatement to even say it. Complaints about VAR pale next to what came in March.
That we’re here at all is to the credit of the Premier League, and new chief executive Richard Masters. He has passed a challenge that would scarcely have been imaginable when he got the job. There were times in March, April and even May when completing the season seemed impossible.
The game’s very safety amid Covid-19 offered enough complications. In that regard, the Premier League’s measured approach in the face of all kinds of hysterical criticism deserves praise. Football has passed off with utmost safety. There were many that considered it a non-starter.
But that was just one part of the problem. The game’s very integrity offered much greater complications. They still hang over the final day, since corralling back the clubs in danger of relegation was the Premier League’s greatest challenge.
Many - particularly Watford and Villa - had fair concerns over the nature of relegation in the circumstances.
That battle is one reason we’re all still here, to settle something that means so much, especially in financial terms.
It is also fitting that a season that so often came down to the millimetres of VAR calls, and has endured the longest gap the game has ever seen, goes the distance and will likely come down to even tighter margins. Maybe goal difference.
That the final day won’t involve the real main event of a title race, however, appropriately reflects how there’s something missing; that this isn’t full football yet.
The absence of supporters will perhaps be sharpest on Sunday. The final day is one of the times they concretely influence proceedings more than any other, because of how the reactions let players know what is happening elsewhere - especially in the relegation battle.
The ease with which Liverpool won the title has had a direct influence on that relegation battle, too. It reflects this profound financial disparity that is eroding the game’s unpredictability, and has itself made Project Restart such a massive necessity. Most clubs needed the money. The gap is too great.
And when the wealthiest clubs get it right, it’s never been easier for them to win games.
That is partly why, for what will likely be the 17th season out of the last 18, the surviving clubs won’t need anywhere near 40 points to stay up.
It is harder for anyone else to gather points in such a league. The threshold has significantly fallen. The 40point figure is a myth. The average points the 18th team have ended up with over the last half decade has been a mere 34.6.
It may well remain 34 on Sunday, especially as it’s currently so difficult to see a deflated Watford rousing themselves for Arsenal.
It has certainly felt as if this relegation battle isn’t so much about who secures survival as who stays standing up while those around them collapse. There’s no other way to describe Watford’s situation, or Bournemouth’s. One single win was really enough to do it for West Ham and Brighton and Hove Albion. Villa’s rise so far isn’t a great escape but a good effort.
That may change on Sunday. The situation may finally bring the response required from Watford. Arsenal aren’t exactly assured against lower opposition. It has the potential for a chaotic back and forth, from Arsenal-Watford to West Ham-Villa, and maybe even Everton-Bournemouth. They know what they have to try and do.
So do all of United, Leicester and Chelsea.
We may not have a greater indication of this financial disparity than that Champions League chase, that other pursuit of the promised land. After a season that had stood out for the strides of Sheffield United, Wolves and Leicester City, where so many of the biggest clubs seemed so fragile, the top four could yet be filled by… the wealthiest four of the big six. It looks the likeliest outcome right now.
United need just a point at home to Leicester, having transformed their season with a £70m signing beyond most clubs in Bruno Fernandes. Chelsea need only a point at home to Wolves, who are hoping to secure European football ahead of Tottenham Hotspur. The Covid crisis means that Europa League prize money is actually more important than ever, especially if you’ve just started paying back a billion-pound stadium.
Chelsea’s own unreliability may yet make that match as entertainingly chaotic as anything that happens at the bottom.
Leicester meanwhile need to win at the King Power to make sure. That means they also need to transform their own form of the last few weeks.
Given that this was a side who had in December seemed potential title challengers, it would be a major disappointment to finish outside the top four.
And yet, when you stand back, fifth place would still represent significant over-performance for a club of such resources. It would look much better if the season was reversed.
That’s how conditioned the game is by money. That’s how off-pitch developments really influence it.
In that sense, there’s perhaps only one way for this oddest of seasons to end: a VAR decision in stoppage time that goes way over-time.
It would at least be the drama the league is famous for, if not in the way many wanted to consider.