Relegation Roulette - A final shot at safety

The scrap is on. After a long hard season, the wheat and the chaff have been separated and with just one game to go, two from four teams will be playing their football in the trenches of the Championship next season. The four contenders in the Premier League’s ever so entertaining (for those not involved) end of season round of relegation Russian roulette are Hull City and the North East trio of Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland.

Borough, having purchased the headstone and arranged the flowers are now relying on Hull and Newcastle to blow their own brains out. Their judgement day trip to West Ham must however produce three points and with the Hammers having nothing but 9th place to fight for, a fired up Borough will feel they could get their part of the job done and hope for divine intervention elsewhere. Who knows, maybe even Alfonso Alves will score.

Up the road at Sunderland, the Mackems have the most breathing space out of the condemned quartet but face the task of getting at least a point against Chelsea. The Blues arrive a week before their FA Cup final date with Everton and could have one eye on claiming some silverware which may allow Sunderland to capitalise. After gifting Portsmouth the three points with some Laurel and Hardy defending on Monday night, they will have to hope the distinctly shaky pairing of Calum Davenport and Anton Ferdinand can stand up to the raging tide of Didier Drogba, Nicolas Anelka, Frank Lampard and Florent Malouda. Saving that, should local rivals Newcastle fail to win, they will be safe.

The Toon Army, who even by their own turbulent standards, have had a season to forget. That it could end with a large flushing noise as they are sucked into the second tier of English football would be the large cherry shaped turd on the distinctly brown smelly icing that is their league campaign. The arrival of Alan ‘he’s not the Messiah, he’s just a crap pundit’ Shearer as manager was supposed to herald a turn around in the fortunes of the club but with just four points and four goals from seven games, the water into wine transformation has a more than vinegary tang. Even a highly unlikely three points at Aston Villa on Sunday will not guarantee their Premier League status. Their safety will depend on events at the Stadium of Light and the KC Stadium.

Premiership newsboys Hull, sprang out of the traps in August and soared up the league and many, perhaps the Hull players included, thought they had done enough by Christmas to all but guarantee safety. Queue disastrous slump in form and twelve points gained since the end of October. Having won once in the league in 2009 the arrival at the KC of newly crowned champions Manchester United does not bode well but it could be a blessing. Hull need a win to guarantee safety and United, having already bagged the title and with both eyes secured firmly on the trip to Rome for the Champions League final, may look to rest their best players. It would not after all be the first time a United side had rolled over on the last day to save a relegation threatened side.

Finely poised as it is, the musical chairs in the league standings that often occurs in the final 90 minutes of the season will be academic should Sunderland and Hull win. Newcastle and Middlesbrough are stuck firmly in the mud at the bottom of the league and would need a tractor the size of an away win at Villa and West Ham respectively, to pull them out.

It has been a truly awful season for all four clubs involved who have been shooting themselves in the foot for months. Whoever stays up it will be through more luck than judgement.

The revolver is loaded. Two bullets in the chamber. Who hears a click? Who hears no more? On Sunday at 6pm we will know.