Football writer Ben Bloom analyses the Matchweek 37 action so far, including significant wins for Aston Villa, Chelsea and Nottingham Forest in the race for UEFA Champions League football.
A thrilling battle to qualify for the Champions League will go down to the wire on the final day of the Premier League season.
Aston Villa and Chelsea beat Europa League finalists Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United respectively in their penultimate league games, while Nottingham Forest triumphed over West Ham United.
Arsenal’s victory over Newcastle United means they are now guaranteed a place in Europe’s top club competition.
Elsewhere, Jamie Vardy signed off his Leicester City career with a goal to help beat Ipswich Town.
Here’s a full round-up of the weekend’s matches.
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Villa’s late-season charge to qualify for the Champions League shows no sign of stopping, with an eighth win in nine Premier League games ensuring they will take their quest to the last day of the season.
Since the start of March, Villa have won a league-high 24 points in the Premier League and they now sit fifth in the table before Manchester City’s match against AFC Bournemouth on Tuesday.
Unai Emery produced a 54th victory in his 100th Premier League game in charge – eight more than any other Villa boss in their first 100 top-flight fixtures (Ron Atkinson and Tony Barton both won 46).
Ezri Konsa scored the opener just before the hour, with Boubacar Kamara doubling the advantage courtesy of his first Premier League goal.
Konsa's goal v Spurs
Ollie Watkins provided the assist for Konsa and has now been directly involved in 109 Premier League goals for Villa (75 goals, 34 assists), the outright most of any player for the club (one more than Gabriel Agbonlahor).
Spurs – who fielded a second-string side ahead of Wednesday’s Europa League final showdown with Man Utd – have now lost 25 games in all competitions this season, matching their joint-highest number of defeats in a single campaign in their history alongside 1991/92.
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A late Marc Cucurella goal extended Chelsea’s unbeaten home record this calendar year and kept their Champions League fate in their own hands ahead of a final-day trip to Forest.
Having struggled to break down Man Utd, Cucurella’s late header followed a wonderful bit of play from Reece James for Chelsea’s eighth win in 10 home games since the turn of the year.
Cucurella's winner v Man Utd
Enzo Maresca will need to resolve his side’s attacking issues ahead of the Forest match, with Cole Palmer yet to score from open play since mid-January. He has created 87 chances in the Premier League this season – the joint-most by a Chelsea player in a campaign since Eden Hazard in 2018/19 (98), while his 125 shots are the most since Didier Drogba in 2010/11 (150).
A strong Man Utd line-up managed just one shot on target, as they fell to their 18th league defeat of the campaign – their most in a season since losing 20 in 1973/74, which was the last time they were relegated.
Man Utd have gone eight league matches without a win – their longest run since 1989/90 – and have won fewer points (two) than any top-flight side since the start of April.
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An Iliman Ndiaye double ensured Everton gave Goodison Park the send-off it deserved with a trouble-free victory over Southampton.
The Everton men’s team will move to a new stadium next season, but they won their final Premier League home game for the eighth time in 10 seasons.
Ndiaye netted twice to become the club’s top Premier League goalscorer this season with nine goals, moving above Beto, who had two efforts ruled out for offside on Sunday.
Defeat was Southampton’s 29th in the Premier League this season – the joint-highest number of losses suffered by a side in a top-flight campaign since Stoke City in 1984/85 (31 in a 42-game season).
Southampton winger Tyler Dibling has now failed to win any of his 20 starts in the Premier League. Only Michael Kightly (23 between 2009-2012), Gareth Bale (22 between 2007-2010) and Nicky Summerbee (21 between 1993-1994) have begun their Premier League careers with a longer run of winless starts.
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Forest managed just five away wins over the previous two seasons, but with this victory at West Ham they doubled that tally to make it 10 victories on the road this campaign.
The win meant Nuno Espirito Santo’s side kept pace with those above them in a tense battle for a Champions League spot.
Morgan Gibbs-White and Nikola Milenkovic provided the two goals, the second of which was assisted by Anthony Elanga. Only Mohamed Salah (18) and Jacob Murphy (12) have more Premier League assists than Elanga’s 11 this season.
West Ham are now winless in their last five Premier League home games – their worst such run since 2019.
The hosts produced 16 shots, but managed an Expected Goals (xG) of just 0.98 – almost half Forest’s 1.91.
A brilliant strike from Jarrod Bowen provided a tense finish, but they were unable to find an equaliser.
Only Salah (55 per cent) has been involved in a greater proportion of his team’s total Premier League goals this season than Bowen (44 per cent).
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Fulham’s substitutes made the difference again as Marco Silva’s side prevailed in a thrilling encounter against Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium.
Tom Cairney and Harry Wilson both came off the bench to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 2-3 lead. In doing so, Wilson (five) joined Rodrigo Muniz (six) in Fulham becoming the first side to have two players score 5+ goals as a substitute in a Premier League campaign.
There was a familiar look to Brentford’s scorers, with Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo both finding the net in a Premier League game for the eighth time this season – the most by a team-mate duo in the same campaign since Salah and Sadio Mane did so in 10 games in 2021/22.
Since the start of January, only Salah (16) has been directly involved in more goals in the Premier League than Mbeumo’s 14 (nine goals, five assists).
Brentford are the fifth-highest scorers in the top flight this campaign, but only Southampton (41) and Ipswich (41) have conceded more goals in Premier League home games than Brentford’s 35.
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Making his 500th and final Leicester City appearance, Jamie Vardy ensured the send-off he had dreamed of by scoring his 200th goal for the club to depart in perfect fashion.
Vardy will leave when his contract expires this summer and has opted not to play in the final game of the season at Bournemouth.
Instead, he bowed out here with the opening goal as Leicester climbed above fellow relegated side Ipswich. Kasey McAteer added Leicester’s second.
Vardy's final Leicester goal
Among the 34 players to have scored 100+ Premier League goals, only Dwight Yorke (98.4 per cent) has scored a greater proportion from inside the penalty area than Vardy (97.9 per cent – 142/145).
Ipswich had 20 shots compared to nine from Leicester. That was the most that Kieran McKenna’s side have managed in a Premier League game this season.
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Arsenal secured Champions League next season with a game to spare as Declan Rice continued his excellent season with another fine strike to secure victory.
Rice’s goal early in the second half was the first time Arsenal have scored in four meetings against Eddie Howe’s side this season.
It took Rice’s tally to 19 goal involvements in all competitions this season (nine goals, 10 assists), with only Bukayo Saka (25) producing more for Arsenal in 2024/25.
Newcastle had five shots on target in the opening 17 minutes of the match, but did not manage another one for the rest of the game.
That meant a 13th Premier League clean sheet of the season for David Raya, who moved alongside Forest's Matz Sels in the battle for the Golden Glove.
Alexander Isak was absent through injury at Emirates Stadium. Newcastle have failed to win any of the four Premier League games that the Swede has missed this season, and have only scored one goal across them.
