Blackpool faced a massive task, playing champions Man Utd at Old Trafford, as did Birmingham, who were away at Spurs. Wolves were at home to Blackburn, and Wigan faced Stoke away. Based on the fixtures, Blackpool were clear favourites to go down, as were Birmingham City.
This is the table before 4pm:
Pos. Team GD Points
15 Blackburn -14 40
16 Wolves -19 40
17 Birmingham -20 39
18 Blackpool -21 39
19 Wigan -22 39
(R) West Ham -24 33
If any team won, then chances are they would stay up. So on to the action. I personally was in between a rock and a hard place, with Man Utd playing Blackpool. Much as I wanted Blackpool to go down, I wanted to see United lose. I think I wanted United to win, but it wasn't a good feeling. Anyway. After some general play with nothing real going on in any of the games, Man Utd took an unsurprising lead vs Blackpool, and then 2 minutes later dominant Blackburn took the lead at Wolves. Blackburn scored again 15 minutes later to take a 2-0 lead, and then a fantastic free kick from Charlie Adam at Old Trafford drew Blackpool level. Blackburn then essentially secured their survival when David Hoilett waltzed through the Wolves defence and scored to make it 3-0 on the stroke of half time.
Half-Time scores:
Wolves 0-3 Blackburn
Tottenham 0-0 Birmingham
Man Utd 1-1 Blackpool
Stoke 0-0 Wigan
Half-Time table:
Pos. Team GD Points
15 Blackburn -11 43
16 Birmingham -20 40
17 Blackpool -21 40
18 Wolves -22 40
19 Wigan -22 40
(R) West Ham -24 33
So at half-time, the 3 Ws were in the relegation zone, and the 3 Bs were safe - for the moment. But just 4 minutes into the 2nd half, Pavlyuchenko scored for Spurs to push Birmingham into the bottom 3. 8 minutes later, Blackpool incredibly took the lead at Old Trafford to take them further away from the drop. That lead lasted for 6 minutes though, when Anderson scored to tie it up. This still left Blackpool above the drop zone with Wigan and Birmingham still in it. O'Hara then scored for Wolves in the 73rd minute to improve their goal difference to -21, and keep them slightly above Wigan and Birmingham (Man this is difficult to write. I can't visualise the table haha). 2 minutes later, Man United took the lead against The Seasiders to drop them down to the 19th and budge B'ham up to 18th and Wigan up to 17th.
(So with 15 minutes left, Blackburn were 15th, Wolves were 16th, Wigan were 17th, Birmingham were 18th and Blackpool were 19th)
It all went down in the 79th minute when Rodallega scored for Wigan to move them to 16th, and then Gardner scored a shock equaliser for Birmingham to move them up to 17th and put Wolves in the relegation zone. Michael "Who-shall-not-be-named" scored for United to pretty much condemn Blackpool to The Championship on 39 points. Gardner nearly gives Birmingham the lead when he hit the crossbar with 7 minutes left to play. Stephen Hunt scored a potentially priceless goal for Wolves to bring it back to 2-3, and more importantly, bring them out of the drop zone on Goals Scored. Just as it looked as if Wolves were going to be joining Blackpool in the 2nd tier of English Football, Roman Pavlyuchenko smashed in his second goal of the game 93 minutes in to put Spurs 2-1 up and send Birmingham down.
So that's how it went down. A topsy-turvy day ended up with Blackpool and Birmingham City going down and Blackburn, Wigan and Wolves staying up.
Final Table:
Pos. Team GD Points
15 Blackburn -13 43
16 Wigan -21 42
17 Wolves -20 40
18 Birmingham -21 40
19 Blackpool -23 39
(R) West Ham -27 33
Final Results:
Wolves 2-3 Blackburn
Tottenham 2-1 Birmingham
Man Utd 4-2 Blackpool
Stoke 0-1 Wigan
So I was pretty pleased Blackpool went down, and not displeased that Birmingham went down. I'll miss Ian Holloway's post-match interviews, but at least we get Mick McCarthy's crazy interviews where he barely talks about the match.
At the top, all that was left to fight for was the Europa League place, which was essentially Spurs', and 3rd and 4th position. For the Europa League place, Spurs were trying to hold off Liverpool, who faced Aston Villa away. Downing scored for Villa after 33 minutes to give them the lead going into half time, and Spurs were still drawing 0-0. Liverpool had to win and Spurs had to not win for Liverpool to get it, and this wasn't looking likely. Liverpool never looked like winning, and when Pavlyuchenko scored the goal that sent Birmingham down, Spurs had secured 5th. As a side note, I preferred that Liverpool didn't win, rather than looking like we were going to qualify for Europe until the 93rd minute.
In the fight for 3rd and 4th, the difference between having to qualify for the Champions League and going in automatically, Arsenal were fighting against FA Cup winners Man City. Arsenal were away to Fulham and Man City were at Bolton. City were 1 point ahead of Arsenal at the start of the day. At half time, City were up 1-0 and Arsenal were drawing 1-1. City held on and Dzeko scored in the 62nd minute to secure 4th, whilst Arsenal could only muster a draw at Craven Cottage thanks to an 89th minute Theo Walcott goal. This left Arsenal in 4th on 68 points and City in 3rd on 71. City actually finished level with Chelsea, who suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Everton. But for City to claim second, they needed a 12 goal turnaround.
For the final table, go to:
Champions League:
Man Utd
Chelsea
Man City
Arsenal
Europa League:
Spurs
Birmingham City (League Cup winners)
Stoke City (FA Cup final runners-up)
Relegated:
Birmingham City
Blackpool
West Ham United
So that's the Premier League done for another season. I hope the off-season brings up some good transfers, which I will blog about at indeterminate point in the future. So, yeah. Stay tuned for a Champions League Final Blog. Also I will do an NHL and NBA post soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment