More Than A Score

Despite the last 2 days seeing the final games of the League One, Championship and League Two regular seasons I had been fastidiously ignoring football to sort out other areas of my life. Then I checked the scores when I returned to my flat tonight and my attention was snapped back onto the sport.

It wasn’t MK Dons being relegated from League One, Northampton Town securing passage in the other direction or the Den collapsing in on itself as Millwall fell out of the Championship play-off places that caught my attention. It is the 3 Premier League games that have me transfixed.

With 4 of the 5 teams in the relegation fight all in action this bank holiday was always likely to produce an interesting set of matches, but no-one could have predicted the blockbusters delivered.

First up were Leicester City, who headed down to Craven Cottage to take on a Fulham team cruising to a top half finish. I expected a simple 2-0 home win, what was served up instead was a 5-3 goal fest.

The hosts raced into a 3-0 lead before halftime and when they added a 4th early in the second half it looked like game over for the foxes but they weren’t ready to roll over and die just yet.

They pulled one back on just before the hour mark through Harvey Barnes and even seeing talisman Jamie Vardy miss from the penalty spot and Willian complete his brace to restore the hosts 4 goal cushion within 10 minutes the visitors refused to crumble.

Sure their two goals in the last 10 minutes of the match, including a successful penalty by James Maddison, weren’t enough to salvage a much needed point or stop them sliding into the relegation zone by day’s end but they can at least take some hope from the fact that they clearly still have the stomach for the fight ahead.

Everton were the next team fighting for their lives on the road today and those fans who made the 273 mile trip down to East Sussex will be returning to Merseyside in a state of pure ecstasy. Brighton may be on the brink of securing European football for next season but today they were blown to smithereens by their visitors.

It took all of 34 seconds for Abdoulaye Doucoure to fire the Toffees into the lead and just under half an hour later he had doubled their advantage. An own goal by Brighton keeper Jason Steele made them the second relegation threatened team to go in at the break today 3 goals to the good.

Dwight McNeil added Everton’s fourth with 14 minutes of the match remaining before putting the gloss on a 5-1 away win by completing his brace in the 6th minute of second half stoppage time. Alexis Mac Allister snuck a consolation goal for Brighton in between McNeil’s strikes, but the 3 points had long been Everton’s as they continue their fight for their still to be a Merseyside derby next season.

With those early insane goal-fests in the history books it would have been plausible for the 8pm kick off between the bottom two to be the dud game of the day, with both teams shutting up shop in a desperate attempt not to be beaten.

Nottingham Forest and Southampton both had other ideas at the City Ground though as they went at it at 1,000mph from the first second. A three minute brace from the host’s Taiwo Awoniyi gave Forest a cushion after 21 minutes, but that only lasted 240 seconds before the Saints had one back through Carlos Alcaraz.

Morgan Gibbs-White restored the host’s cushion from the penalty spot a minute before half-time. This was not enough to kill off a Southampton team desperate for a positive result though and they took just 6 minutes of the second half to deflate the cushion once more. This time it was Lycano who headed them back into contention.

It took Forest till the 73rd minute to restore their cushion once again. This time Danilo rifled home from inside the area having been set up by Gibbs-White and, despite a 96th minute James Ward-Prowse penalty slotted straight down the centre they were able to hold onto their lead till the final whistle.

This crucial win for Forest and a loss that almost certainly condemns Southampton to their first second-tier season in a decade next season was the final action of triplet of Premier League games that saw 21 goals scored.

The upshot of this crazy day at the bottom of the Premier League is that Southampton are doomed, even 3 wins from their last 3 games may not be enough to save them. Whilst Forest and Everton have put their fate firmly in their own hands with crucial wins that give them clear breathing space to Leeds United and Leicester in the battle to avoid the drop.