Recent match days of the EPL are exciting because of 2 reasons. Firstly, there are a lot of matches with at least 5 goals per match.

Secondly there is fierce competition between teams. In recent years, it has sort of become expected that Manchester City would win the EPL. Out of the last 5 seasons City won 4 and finished 2nd in the season they did not win. What made the non competition worse was the gap in points especially of the 3rd placed team from the top 2.

In 2017/18 M City had 19 points more than MU and 23 points more than 3rd placed Tottenham.

In 2018/19, 3rd placed Chelsea had 26 points less than M City and 25 points less than Liverpool.

In 2019/20 (year City did not win), Liverpool had 23 points more than 3rd place MU and 18 points more than M City.

In 2020/21 City had 12 points more than MU  and 17 points more than 3rd placed Liverpool

In 2021/22 3rd placed Chelsea had 19 points less than M City and 18 points less than Liverpool 

In 2022/23 3rd placed MU had 14 points less than M City and 9 points less than Arsenal

Source: EPL

Way before the end of the seasons, it was clear how the season would end. The lack of suspense robs the competition of excitement. 😴😭🥱

In contrast to the above, Currently Liverpool has 57 points while Arsenal has 55 points. M City if it wins against Brentford day after tomorrow, will be tightly sandwiched between the 2 with 56 points. Just 1 point separating each of the 3 sides. 

The competition for 4th to 6th place is wide open and will likely to be fought between Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur and MU. 

Now let us look at the matches for match day 25 of 38.

Arsenal followed up their 6-0 win over West Ham on match day 24 with another big win of 5-0 against Burnley

Liverpool retained their lead at the top of the table with an emphatic 4-1 win against Brentford

M City unexpectedly failed to defeat Chelsea and had to settle for a 1-1 draw. Because of the 2 points dropped, M City will not be able to overtake Liverpool at the top of the table even if they win against Brentford on Wednesday. City is expected to win the match against Brentford which was postponed from December 2023 as City was away competing in the World Club Championship at that time. 

Rasmus Hojland scored a brace which earned MU a 2-1 victory over Luton. 

Hojland had a slow start in his playing career at MU which caused some to say that he was a failure not worth the price MU paid for him. 

Since starting to score, Hojland has dispelled any doubts about him by scoring in 6 consecutive games. In the game against Luton he scored an astonishing quick goal. Just 36 seconds after the start of the game, a defensive mistake by Luton gave the ball to Hojland who made no mistake with the gift. 

Minutes later Hojland scored another goal that some described as "outlandish". It was not an accidental  deflection of a shot by A Garnacho. Hojland deliberately used his chest to push the ball into goal. Hojland deserve praise for not wasting time to try to control the ball in order to kick it. He showed his killer instinct to seize the opening and chestiing the ball home. 

Luton halved the deficit in what some fans called out as a mistake by goalkeeper Onana. He went away from his goal but was beaten to the ball by Villa's  who headed in the goal. 

DO YOU THINK THAT ONANA IS TO BE BLAMED? 

There were no goals scored in the second half of the match between MU and Luton This in contrast to the late goals by MU which enabled MU to win its last 3 matches and rise to 6th place in the EPL table. 

Villa which lost to MU 1-2  last week, defeated Fulham 2-1 this week. 

The opposite happened for Tottenham. They defeated Brighton 2-1 last week  but lost 1-2 to Wolves this week. 

With Villa and Tottenham taking turns to lose/win by 2-1 margins, Villa  regained 4th placing from Tottenham who overtook Villa last week. 

The taking of turns to lose by Villa and Tottenham has enabled MU  which won 4 consecutive EPL matches to close the gap with Villa and Tottenham. 

Thus with slightly more than a quarter of the current season to go we have intense competition at the top section of the EPL table. 

There is also fierce fighting for survival at the bottom section of the table. 

Burnley whose 0-5 loss to Arsenal was matched by Sheffield United who lost to Brighton 0-5. Both of these clubs have 13 points only and are stuck to the bottom of the table. 

The fight to avoid relegation by being the 3rd  from the bottom involves at least 5 clubs: Everton, Luton, Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Brentford. 

Everton with 19 points has the least number of points of these 5 clubs. This is because of a 10 points deduction that was slapped on Everton. Their next match is against Crystal Palace who have 24 points. if Everton wins the match, the gap between the 2 sides will be just 2 points. 

DO YOU THINK THAT THE 10 POINTS DEDUCTION FOR EVERTON (which may cause them to be one of the teams relegated) IS EXCESSIVELY HARSH? 

Pre October 2023 Bournemouth was one of the bottom 3 clubs. A turn around since then has lifted them out of the relegation zone. 

The 5 clubs mentioned above hope to join Bournemouth. 

WHICH OF THEM DO YOU THINK WILL FAIL AND BE RELEGATED?