It is not even Easter, and the title and relegation races appear to be over in English Premier League.
At the top, Manchester United are 15 points clear of Manchester City with nine games to go after United beat Reading 1-0 while City lost 2-0 at 10-man Everton. It would take a monumental collapse for United not to collect its 20th title.
With the title decided, the focus at the top of the table will now turn to the race for the last two Champions League places between Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal.
Because Spurs and Chelsea are still in the Europa League, they are now on a Thursday-Sunday schedule meaning that for the next couple of weeks at least, Arsenal will play before their London rivals. That could potentially be an advantage for Arsenal, but only if they win. And they did that today, beating Swansea 2-0 at the Liberty Stadium. Monreal and Gervinho with the Arsenal goals.
The win moves Arsenal to within 2 points of Chelsea in 4th and 4 points of Spurs, ahead of their games against West Ham and Fulham, respectively tomorrow.
At the other end of the table, it looks very much like Queens Park Rangers and Reading are down after Rangers lost 3-2 at Aston Villa and Reading 1-0 at Old Trafford. The defeats left both QPR and Reading seven points from safety with only 8 games left. After Jermaine Jenas gave QPR an early lead, Villa hit back through Gabriel Agbonlahor and Andreas Weimann, only for Andros Townsend’s deflected strike to draw the visitors level in the 73rd minute. Then Christian Benteke scored the winner from Weimann’s cut-back with nine minutes remaining to put Villa
Wigan are six points behind Villa, but they have two games in hand, the first one which is Sunday at home to Newcastle.
Elsewhere, any European dreams that Liverpool had for next season ended as they lost 3-1 at Souhampton while Stoke City and West Brom drew 0-0.
