Who in the Premier League Finishes Top Five this Season?

This Premier League campaign has been amongst the most memorable of its kind in recent memory.

And while impressive seasons like those of Liverpool last season, or Manchester City prior to that, are remarkable and worth appreciating, few seasons in recent time have been as full of real, unbridled competition down the table as well as on the top. While the bottom relegation battle can be discussed in relentless detail, only a brief passing over it will take place in this piece.

Instead, we will mainly look at the top of the table, for after Manchester City sitting atop the table by double digit points, the state of European qualification is unknown to say the least. Below City’s mammoth fifteen point lead, Manchester United sit at fifty points; between second and seventh place, currently the Toffees by virtue of their goals in comparisons to Liverpool, only seven points separates six clubs.

That is an absolute race to the finish, to European competitions and the coin purses that follow them, and to a brighter future. Both West Ham United, currently in fourth, and Everton are crashing this party of sorts, and would sorely enjoy little more than to make it in instead of a Tottenham or Arsenal. But will David Moyes and Carlo Ancelotti keep their clubs steady in these final months, or will another team sneak in?

Top to Bottom, the Premier League is wild this Season

First, to the bottom: during a period not terribly far off ago, the bottom threw of Fulham, West Brom and Sheffield United felt a pretty comfortable conclusion to draw. Yet at the start of March, this is not entirely the case any further. Both Fulham and West Bromwich have been surging, and while Albion continues to be in the greater peril with just seventeen points, Fulham sit just three points from clawing Newcastle United into a truly horrifying possibility: the Championship.

While that drama continues to play out however, the top is where most of the conventional chatter remains. Liverpool and Everton sit just a single point behind Chelsea for the Europa League qualification of fifth place; West Ham meanwhile, sits simply a point above Chelsea and therefore, the permanence of  these current positions is absolutely fleeting to be generous.

Above those clubs, Leicester City have suffered a dip in form coinciding with injuries across the squad; as a result, they were eliminated from Europe by Slavia Praha the Europa League, before suffering a beat down by the Gunners. Even with these struggles however, they sit only a game behind number two Manchester United, who have been consistent in their recent inconsistency as well.

With so many moving parts, so many different forms to consider, and so many injury issues and scheduling conflicts to report, it is difficult to imagine this resolving before the final week or two of the campaign. With that understood, what does this writer believe?

This Writer’s Opinion

While City have the title wrapped up with continued consistency, the rest of the top five is absolutely a guess as to order and composition. While some might delve into a larger top, to accommodate the newly minted Europa Conference League, I will leave that for another piece, or perhaps another writer on another day. In any event, the top five is complicated enough, and opening it up to a top six or seven at the time of this piece would simply add a whole host of teams that have reasonable chances at qualification.

I think that below Manchester City, Manchester United will fight with Leicester in a real battle to see which team can string together runs of form without injuries or miscues. They are not safe from falling out of the top five, yet the chances of this are quite small, and so I believe that the Red Devils will finish second, with Leicester finishing between third and fifth place.

After that, it becomes a bit difficult. Can West Ham continue this pace? Continue this form? David Moyes is doing some really fantastic things, and he should be applauded for this; after his departure from United, following literal years at Everton, the coach was laughed at for replacing Sir Alex Ferguson. Should he deliver the Hammers to Europe, no one would be laughing any further however.

They sit right above Chelsea, who sit right above both Liverpool and the aforementioned Toffees. With Thomas Tuchel managing at Stamford Bridge now, the defense has grown far stronger and more organized thanks to this genius abilities as a boss. Yet the offense has been, forgive me, offensive; should they figure a means of remedying that issue, they will be a lock for a UCL spot in next years campaign; but at the cost of who?

For me, should Leicester fall to fifth place, I can see Chelsea and Everton sneaking into the third and fourth spots respectively, albeit one is unsure of the order. Everton have proven that they are young, ambitious and ready, yet prone to errors and poor play to worse competition. While they have to play Chelsea, West Ham and Man City all one more time in the Premier League each, they have plenty of other matches to take points as well, and wins against the first two listed likely will offer Everton room as the final stretch beckons all football clubs forward.

This means that, while Leicester falls into fifth, West Ham would fall to either sixth of seventh, potentially good enough for a spot in the new European league, or even Europa should things fall in particular ways in that event this season. In any case, they’ll be challenged by the likes of Tottenham, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Leeds United.

The race to Europe is a race that consumes months of a year, only for groups of men to fall short of the success they put their minds towards finding. Yet such is why they put their will to the test match in and match out, year in and year out; to find success, silverware and happiness. Whoever makes it to Europe, will certainly have a story to tell from a wild campaign, while the losers in this race will surely feel gutted, yet ready for another chance to do it all over again in just months; Sisyphus must be thought to be smiling at the idea.