UCL spots competition is getting more and more interesting, and unpredictable

Tottenham and Newcastle closed the gap between third placed Arsenal, after winning the last match, 4-1 against Bolton and 2-0 against Chelsea respectively, both away games.

Few predicted Newcastle would came back from Stamford Bridge with a victory. First, Chelsea had been superb recently, beating Barcelona in the Champions League and trashing Tottenham on the FA Cup. Newcastle just lost 0-4 on Wigan's home last week, while Chelsea enjoyed 6-1 home victory against QPR, where Fernando Torres scored his first hattrick. Well, football is not mathematics, so as we know, Newcastle beat the host by two magnificent - and rather unbelievable - Pappis Cisse's brace.
 
With this result, Tottenham stands in fourth place, and Newcastle in the 5th place, just with goal difference between them. Both of them are just one point away from Arsenal, who sits on the third place. Chelsea are four points away from the fourth place, but would be able to qualify to the Champions League, should they beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League final, leaving the fourth placed team in Premier League advanced to Europa League instead of Champions League. Arsenal is still on the driving seat with one point advantage, but should they complacent and dropped more points, they will ended outside big four and means no Champions League football next season.

How the Standing looks like

Points Games Win   Draw Loss Score Conc 3 Arsenal 66 36 20 6 10 68 44 4 Tottenham 65 36 19 8 9 63 40 5 Newcastle 65 36 19 8 9 55 46 6 Chelsea FC 61 36 17 10 9 62 41

(table from goal.com)

 
Remaining fixture for 4 competing teams for the Champions League Spots
ARSENAL
vs Norwich (h)
vs West Brom (a)

TOTTENHAM
vs Aston Villa (a)
vs Fulham (h)

NEWCASTLE 
vs Man City (h)
vs Everton (a)

CHELSEA
vs Liverpool (a)
vs Blackburn (h)

Looking for the remaining fixtures, Arsenal and Tottenham get the opponent that mathematically they are able to beat. Arsenal welcomes Norwich this weekend, before traveling to the Hawhtorns, West Bromwich to face WBA, while Tottenham have Aston Villa and Fulham for their final two opponents. Newcastle have the toughest fixtures, welcoming league leader Manchester City in their stadium and an away games to in-form Everton in the final day, who comfortably sits in 7th place. Chelsea would have one tough game against two-faced Liverpool on Anfield, and closed the season with the home game against relegation threatened team, Blackburn.


However, Premier League has been really unpredictable, adding some exciting reason to follow it. Some of unpredictable wins and defeats occured. Wigan knocked Arsenal in Emirates 2-1 and trashing Newcastle 4-0, after losing controversially against Chelsea and overplayed Man. United. Fulham beating Wigan on Craven Cottage, and Liverpool on Anfield, Norwich beating Tottenham in Hart Lane,  and on-fire Chelsea just lost against Newcastle. No one would be sure how the Premier League would ended, anything still could happen.

The race for the Champions League spots is likely to be tight and tense, until the very last moment of it, unlike the previous season, where the teams qualifying to Champions League already settled in this phase of competition. No teams could afford to drop more points if they want to play in the highest competition in Europe. Even if Arsenal winning plus Tottenham and Newcastle drop the point in gameweek 37, the later two names would still have to battle for the fourth place. Even if one of them already got the fourth place, they still could lose the place, should Chelsea win the Champions League. Any fourth placed team in EPL - except if Chelsea somehow manage to climb to 4th place, surely will pray so Chelsea won't win the Champions League.