What to know ahead of the final round in the Premier League
Here what’s to look out for heading into the final round of the Premier League on Sunday:
Fight
for the Champions League
Five teams — Manchester City, Newcastle, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest — are bidding for the remaining three Champions League qualification spots alongside already-crowned champion Liverpool and second-place Arsenal.
City is in third place on 68 points. Fourth-place Newcastle, fifth-place Chelsea and sixth-place Villa each have 66, and seventh-place Forest has 65.
City is away to Fulham and, because of its superior goal difference (+26) compared to its rivals, knows a draw is all but certain to secure a top-five finish.
Indeed, Newcastle (+22) and Chelsea (+20) have a much better goal difference than Villa (+9) so are virtually sure of getting into the Champions League with victories.
Chelsea has the toughest match — away to Forest — while Newcastle hosts Everton and Villa visits Manchester United, which is coming off losing the Europa League final.
Forest must beat Chelsea and also needs one of Newcastle and Villa to lose or draw their games to secure Champions League qualification. It would be a huge achievement, given Nuno Espirito Santo’s team was fighting relegation last season.
A sixth-place finish guarantees a place in the Europa League.
Farewells
Man City star Kevin De Bruyne heads the list of players bidding farewell to their teams on the final day.
De Bruyne already had a big Etihad Stadium sendoff on Tuesday after the win over Bournemouth but this will be the last game in his 10-year career with City.
Elsewhere, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s goodbye to Liverpool hasn’t been so celebrated by some Reds fans unhappy at him leaving his boyhood team on a free transfer. His last game for Liverpool is against Crystal Palace at Anfield and Liverpool manager Arne Slot said Friday he hasn’t decided if Alexander-Arnold will start.
Others heading into the final games for their clubs include Victor Lindelof and Christian Eriksen (Man United), Jorginho and Kieran Tierney (Arsenal), Abdoulaye Doucoure (Everton) and Lukasz Fabianski (West Ham).
On the managerial front, there’s still plenty of speculation about the future of Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou despite leading the team to the Europa League title. What he says — or how he behaves — after the home game against Brighton will be telling. It could also be Ruud van Nistelrooy’s final game in charge of relegated Leicester.
Trophy lift and records
Liverpool’s players will finally get their hands on the Premier League trophy after closing their title-winning campaign against Palace, the FA Cup winner — a dress rehearsal of sorts for the season-opening Community Shield in August.
Mohamed Salah, who has 28 goals and 18 assists this season, heads to Anfield with a couple of records in sight. He is one goal or assist away from the Premier League’s single-season goal contribution record of 47 — held jointly by now-retired strikers Alan Shearer and Andrew Cole — and two assists short of the record for most assists in a Premier League season, held by De Bruyne and Arsenal great Thierry Henry.
Salah looked likely to break both of those records but has just one goal and one assist in his last eight matches.
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will be at Anfield on Sunday.
Playoff final
Before the last round of Premier League games, there’s a huge match at Wembley Stadium on Saturday to discover which team will be playing in the top flight next season.
Sunderland and Sheffield United meet in the Championship playoff final for the right to join Leeds and Burnley in getting promoted from the second tier.
The playoff final is the most lucrative one-off match in world soccer, with Sunderland — last in the Premier League in 2017 — in line to get an estimated revenue uplift of around 200 million pounds ($260 million) in projected matchday, broadcast and commercial revenue in case of promotion, and much more if the team was to survive the first season back in the top flight.
For Sheffield United, the uplift would be an estimated $180 million as the club is still benefitting from parachute payments from the last time the team was in the Premier League — in the 2023-24 season.
Sunderland’s team contains Jobe Bellingham, the younger brother of Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham.
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer