Sunday 16th March, 1:30pm
Arsenal @ 5/6
Chelsea @ 27/10
Draw @ 10/3
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It has been almost eight years since a team from London held aloft the Premier League trophy. And with the title set to be staying in the North-West for 2025; that vast, celebratory feast of jellied eels and parsley liquor will have to remain covered with cling-film for another 12 months. Don’t worry, I’m sure the flavour will be unaffected…
Just 10 helpings of fixtures are left to be scoffed this season, and Gameweek 29 lays before us a platter highlighted by some nourishing capital carnage. So, with nationwide glory currently out of reach, compelling internecine conflict becomes the primary focus, as four ‘Gangs of London’ simultaneously scuffle for city supremacy.
Arsenal v Chelsea is a 1:30pm kick-off on Sunday; and, down by the river, Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur lock horns at the same time.
This postcode-straddling, London-on-London warfare could well provide the backdrop for a madcap, expletive-filled, soon-to-be-panned new Danny Dyer movie; but the stakes are serious, particularly at The Emirates.
Despite a mixed 2025, Chelsea still have a toe in the Champions League qualification waters; and, despite a comfortable week in European competitions, Arsenal are winless in three in the Premier League. The gap between the two side is bridgeable.
An intriguing though highly unlikely set of scenarios – beginning with Aston Villa winning the Champions League but finishing well outside the top four – means that as many as 11 teams could potentially qualify to compete in Europe next season. Good news for Fulham – who currently sit in 10th – and enough to give Spurs reason to keep grinding away despite their frequently miserable 2024/25 campaign.
“This postcode-straddling, London-on-London warfare could well provide the backdrop for a madcap, expletive-filled […] movie.”
But while these local squabbles are unfolding, two Northern outfits will be stealthily descending towards the metropolis in order to contest this season’s first major trophy. The Carabao Cup Final, between Liverpool and Newcastle United, is a 4:30pm kick-off.
Regardless of London’s current silverware inferiority, Wembley Stadium is still referred to as the ‘Home of Football’. And it will keep that tag until the North-West begins to assert its football stadium supremacy…which will no doubt happen when Manchester United’s proposed ‘Gigantic Tarpaulin Circus Tent…of Dreams’ is finally completed.
‘London calling to the faraway towns’, sang Joe Strummer and The Clash back in 1979. And English towns – or should that be toons? – don’t get much further away from London than Newcastle. Though Newcastle may feel they are – finally – moving closer to elusive glory.
Not just because they didn’t have to contest a game in midweek, but because their opponents did…and it ended-up being a long, gruelling, and ultimately demoralising night for them. But when you are bearing the weight of 70 years of dearth upon your shoulders, even the simplest tap-ins are sure to feel like a Herculean challenge for Newcastle.
Liverpool’s Champions League exit at the manicured hands of PSG will have hurt, but it also brought into focus the issue that looks set to characterise the remaining weeks of this season. Speculation immediately arose from the ashes of the game surrounding the respective futures of three key players: Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Perhaps the most appropriate song to soundtrack this particular clash, then, is not London Calling…but Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
Is there a possibility that these players, whose thoughts may be drifting elsewhere, begin to lose their focus on the games still left to play? Alexander-Arnold looks set to miss this final due to injury anyway, and his fellow team-mates will be keen to avoid a protracted trudge towards another penalty shoot-out.
It seems ironic that a competition sponsored by an energy drinks company could be decided by which team has the most propulsive fizz left in its tank…
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