The final weekend and what's to come

Well, after nine months of action, the fate of several teams in the Premier League rests on the events of Sunday. Manchester United need to win to lock up the league championship, Chelsea need United to slip and a victory against Bolton at Stamford Bridge to pip the Red Devils at the end.

Derby are down, but two of Fulham, Reading and Birmingham City will join them after tomorrow. The Blues need a win and a draw or loss by both of the other teams to stay up. Fulham are safe with a win, while Reading need a win coupled with a Fulham draw or loss in order to escape relegation.

After picking Man United to win it all in August, I think they will win against Wigan to close out another league title. The can't afford to slip up, as Chelsea will surely take all the points against Bolton, but I'll go on the record to state that Man United will take the league and Chelsea will have their revenge in Moscow at the Champions League Final.

As for the relegation battles, I think Reading will go down, along with Birmingham. At Reading, the team seems to have given up and manager Steve Coppell is paying the price for not upgrading his side after surviving the vital first year in the top flight. Even lowly Derby, Reading's final foe of the season, will prove too much for this bunch.

As for Birmingham, Alex McLeish coaxed some fine displays out of this side when he arrived mid-season, but he is finding out the hard way what a manager's job is in the Premier League. I'm sure he'll be back, perhaps not with Birmingham but he'll see better days in the future.

The Blues are in tough against Blackburn, who are still a top-half team, while Fulham are playing with the conviction of a team wanting to survive -- and likely will against Portsmouth, who have been on cruise control since qualifying for the FA Cup final.

Here in Canada, three games will be shown live: Wigan v. Manchester United (The Score), Chelsea v. Bolton (Setanta) and Portsmouth v. Fulham (Sportsnet). A slew of same day, tape-delayed games will follow, making for some fascinating televised action.

In the days ahead on the blog, I'm going to be writing a season review of sorts, cataloging the ups and downs of the football season across Europe, and preparing a Euro 2008 preview. For the close season, I'm going to try to post a weekly collection of rumors and happenings in the transfer market and otherwise. Stay tuned.