Christmas not only marks the most wonderful time of the year but also marks the halfway point of the British Premier League. The volatility of the first half of the season is over, and most teams have established themselves into individual battles in their little corner of the table. The battle for 1st looks like it will be between Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool and the relegation battle is between Watford, Burnley, Newcastle and Norwich City. But what’s most interesting this year is the battle for 4th, a position which Arsene Wenger famously said 4th a trophy in itself. So let’s look at who is in this battle for the last Championship League spot and which teams will be faced with the indignity of the Europa League or, worse… the Europa League Conference.
Arsenal
Current favourites for the 4th spot, it’s possible that Arsenal fans took this spot for granted all those years, but now Arteta and his boys have finally settled in; it looks like Arsenal could be back in the game. After some inconsistent results at the beginning of the season, mainly against admittedly tough opposition, Arsenal have had a great run of form recently, and if they can keep Xhaka away from the first 11, they should be able to clinch the 4th spot. Maybe Xhaka should check out this link, which you can too if you want some top-class on card registration bonuses, on a Saturday rather than turn up to the Emirates.
Tottenham
Sun Tzu famously wrote, “Every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought”, and sadly for Tottenham, they started the season off with a house divided. Daniel Levy appears to have broken Harry Kane’s will, with Kane only scoring 4 goals this season. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot more to Tottenham than Harry Kane, but in order to get 4th with this stacked league, a team needs its star player to be firing on all cylinders.
Man Utd
You’d think that signing one of the best players in the world would give the whole club a boost, as well as having the benefits of one of the best players in the world in your starting 11. But Man Utd seem to be looking a gift horse in the mouth by not taking full advantage of 5-time Champions League winning Ronaldo. United currently sit 7th when writing this article, and there seem to be more than a few bad apples at United, as Ronaldo heavily implied in recent interviews. Ralf Rangnick has done a fine job of steadying the good ship United, but whether they can get 4th depends on how much the lads want it.
West Ham
Noone expected West Ham to be 4th at the winter break, but the Hammers have been outstanding and have put the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham and Man United to shame. This hasn’t come out of nowhere though, West Ham finished 6th last year, and David Moyes’ project is starting to yield some top class results. The worry is when a team overachieves that the wheels will fall off, but they didn’t when Leicester won the league, and they may not for West Ham.