Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News 
After a busy midweek of Premier League fixtures, the top five race is starting to take shape, with the Premier League top 10 looking like this:
Liverpool – 73 points
Arsenal – 61 points
Nottingham Forest – 57 points
Chelsea – 52 points
Man City – 51 points
Newcastle – 50 points (played one game less)
Aston Villa – 48 points
Brighton – 47 points
Fulham – 45 points
Bournemouth – 44 points
It’s tight, but the race for a top five finish is starting to heat up as defeats for Bournemouth (10th), Fulham (9th) and Brighton (8th) were met with wins for Aston Villa (7th), Newcastle (6th), Man City (5th), Chelsea (4th) and Forest (3rd).
With all of that in mind, Opta have released their latest points projections as he head into the run in.
The statisticians at Opta believe Newcastle United will pip Chelsea to fifth place over the final weeks of the 2024/25 season.
The Blues went back above us in the league last night following a 1-0 win over Spurs, but Enzo Maresca’s side have played a game more – as have Aston Villa – and have a plenty of tricky fixtures left, including trips to Brentford, Newcastle, Forest and Fulham, as well as a home tie with Liverpool next month.
Opta believe they’ll finish sixth on 64 points and one behind us, predicting Aston Villa will end the season in seventh on 60 points.
Here’s Opta’s latest projections as of Friday 4th April…
Based on these projections, Opta are backing us to pick up 15 points from our final nine games, where we have Leicester, Man Utd, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Ipswich, Brighton, Chelsea, Arsenal and Everton left to play.
Newcastle finishing fifth would almost certainly land Champions League football next season, with UEFA coefficient tables indicating that England will get another slot for next season’s competition if any Premier League side wins a quarter-final tie across the three European tournaments.
Aston Villa are one to watch after a barnstorming 3-0 win at Brighton the night we beat Brentford, although they have struggled to bounce back from European games this season and have a huge quarter-final tie with PSG coming up over the next fortnight.
