The last day of the season tends to see players, starting to pack their summer bags and thinking of sunnier climes, but today sees the final lap in this year’s Premier League, and a number of issues still undecided. Not least of these is the main prize itself, with just a point separating Chelsea and reigning champions Manchester United. Both sides play at home against weaker teams with little to play for. Chelsea host a game but wildly erratic Wigan team, who beat them earlier this season, but have tended to fair badly on the road.

United have an ungainly Stoke team visiting them. Stoke have won few friends this season but a few grudging admirers, but appear to be in some disarray these days. They were, however, utterly humiliated by Chelsea two weeks ago, and there have reports of a series of incidents, involving actual fisticuffs, amongst players and even manager Tony Pullis. After the Chelsea game, Abdi Faye and Glen Whelan were involved in a fight in the dressing room, apparently because Faye wore flip-flops in the warm up. Probably seemed important at the time…

It’s hard to see, either team slipping up this afternoon, which would give Chelsea the title.

The battle for fourth place, and the last Champions League spot, was resolved mid week, with Tottenham beating Manchester City, 1-0, and becoming the first team to break the Chelsea-United-Arsenal-Liverpool monopoly for a number of years. Confidence at Spurs is riding high, after beating bitter rivals Arsenal and then Chelsea in consecutive weeks. They could even pip Arsenal to 3^rd spot, and avoid having to qualify for the group stages, if they get a better result than the Gunners today. Both have straight forward games, but such has been Arsenal’s slump in the past weeks that they are certainly not a shoe-in…

The relegation places have already been decided, with Hull, Burnley and the unfortunate (and bankrupt) Portsmouth all going down. Portsmouth, incredibly, still have a cup final to look forward to, however.

Taking their place for next season, will be Championship winners Newcastle, runners up West Brom (their 8th promotion or relegation in the last 11 seasons), plus one more team from the play-offs. The four teams in the play-offs are Leicester, Cardiff, Nottingham Forest and lowly Blackpool. Of the four possibles, I hope Blackpool come up, if only for the chance to see more of their enjoyably batty manager, Ian Holloway.