West Ham United face relegation threatened Everton on Sunday. With just eight league games to go is a top six finish still on the cards?

There are just two months of the Premier League season to go with the top eight teams ten points clear of the teams currently in 9^th and 10^th position, so you would like to think that those eight teams will finish in the top eight in May. That is the most likely scenario, although Leicester (in tenth) do have three games in hand over West Ham and Wolves in seventh and eighth, so it is not impossible for them to be involved if they have an outstanding set of results to finish the season. As a comparison with the teams above them (see below) the last five Leicester games have yielded 9 points.

We currently sit in seventh place in the Premier League table; a top four finish is beginning to look out of the question, but we are still in touch and challenging for top six. We will need to improve on recent league form to achieve this.

The current league table – top 8 (games played in brackets):

Man City 70 (29)
Liverpool 69 (29)
Chelsea 59 (28)
Arsenal 54 (28)
Tottenham 51 (29)
Man Utd 50 (29)
West Ham 48 (30)
Wolves 46 (30)

The form table (last 5 games of the top 8 in the current league table):

Liverpool 15
Chelsea 15
Arsenal 12
Tottenham 12
Man City 10
Man Utd 10
West Ham 7
Wolves 6

Remaining fixtures:

Man City: H – Liverpool, Brighton, Watford, Newcastle, Villa
Man City: A – Burnley, Leeds, West Ham, Wolves
Liverpool: H – Watford, Man Utd, Everton, Tottenham, Wolves
Liverpool: A – Man City, Newcastle, Southampton, Villa
Chelsea: H – Brentford, Arsenal, West Ham, Wolves, Watford, Leicester
Chelsea: A – Southampton, Everton, Man Utd, Leeds
Arsenal: H – Brighton, Man Utd, Leeds, Everton
Arsenal: A – Palace, Southampton, Chelsea, West Ham, Newcastle, Tottenham
Tottenham: H – Newcastle, Brighton, Leicester, Arsenal, Burnley
Tottenham: A – Villa, Brentford, Liverpool, Norwich
Man Utd: H – Leicester, Norwich, Brentford, Chelsea
Man Utd: A – Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Brighton, Palace
West Ham: H – Everton, Burnley, Arsenal, Man City
West Ham: A – Brentford, Chelsea, Norwich, Brighton
Wolves: H – Villa, Brighton, Norwich, Man City
Wolves: A – Newcastle, Burnley, Chelsea, Liverpool

The outstanding fixtures for the top eight are summarised above, split between home and away games. It is not always easy to decide which fixtures are the toughest or easiest at this stage of the season. Sometimes those clubs battling to avoid relegation can be equally difficult games when compared to facing those clubs challenging for a European place. And with the prize money on offer for each place in the table, all clubs are trying to finish as high as possible, so teams in between can be tough too.

I’ve looked at the fixtures and made a guess at the results to see where I think we might end up. 14 points from the last 8 games would take us up to 62 points which is what Tottenham achieved last season when finishing seventh. 17 points are needed for us to equal last years total of 65 when we finished sixth. 67 points was the total for fourth place last time, but I suspect that it will be higher this time around. If the teams in the top eight maintained their average points for the season to date in their final fixtures then the final table would be:

Man City 92
Liverpool 90
Chelsea 80
Arsenal 73
Tottenham 67
Man Utd 66
West Ham 61
Wolves 58

My own forecast of the results in the remaining games would result in a league table like this: (I’ll look back in May to see how close I got!). Take a look at the outstanding fixtures and see where you think we’ll finish.

Man City 93
Liverpool 91
Chelsea 83
Arsenal 73
Tottenham 70
Man Utd 62
West Ham 62
Wolves 56

Quite clearly we need to improve on our average points per game tally in the final run-in and hope that those teams above us don’t perform as well as they have done so far. Looking at the remaining fixtures of those teams above us I reckon Arsenal and Manchester United have a tougher set than Tottenham, who have potentially the easiest, although Arsenal do have points in the bag. I’ll be looking carefully at the Manchester United results as I believe that if we have a strong finish they are the ones we could catch to finish sixth. It will be close but at this stage a top six finish is still on the cards. Perhaps even goal difference will come into play?

A top 6 place at the end of the season will (I think) guarantee a place in Europe next season as Liverpool have won the EFL Cup. A European spot will extend to a seventh place finish (I think) providing one of Man City, Liverpool or Chelsea win the FA Cup and finish in the top four – a likely outcome unless Palace win the FA Cup.

Full details (an excerpt taken from the Premier League.com/European-qualification-explained website) of how Premier League clubs can qualify for Europe next season can be found here.

So if I’ve interpreted it correctly, sixth should be good enough for another tilt at the Europa League next season, and seventh will qualify for the Europa Conference League. Of course winning the Europa League would be the best outcome as it would mean automatic qualification for the Champions League. What we must not do is finish eighth or below to stand a chance of being in European competition next season (unless we win the Europa League).

Hopefully I’ve got this right. The next obstacle is the visit of Everton on Sunday. The top three teams have relatively easy fixtures this weekend so I think we must hope for Villa to pick up something at Wolves, Leicester to do the same at Old Trafford, and Newcastle to stop Tottenham winning. Arsenal probably can’t be caught but a defeat at Palace would also be a bonus.

All International breaks (and this is the the fourth one this season) can be really disruptive to the league programme, but it does give us the opportunity to regroup for the final push in the last two months of the season. Everton are in disarray but they will be fighting hard to pick up something at the London Stadium. With just eight league games to go we must really hope for three points on Sunday to maintain our challenge.

The European adventure (whatever happens now) has been great this season, and it would be excellent if we can qualify once again. Can we do it? I think we can. What are the chances?