It was a Premier League weekend which began with Arsenal cementing their top four aspirations at the expense of careless Manchester United and ended at Selhurst Park with Crystal Palace and Leeds battling out a Monday evening stalemate.
But the main story was not played out in north or south London but in Lancashire and on Merseyside.
And that means we are in for a frantic finish at the foot of the table, as well in the title race.
As far as I was concerned, and probably the SBOTOP Premier League betting odds backed up my stance, the chances of Burnley staying up all but disappeared on Good Friday when they parted company with long-serving manager Sean Dyche.
He had helped the Clarets became the neutral’s favourite underdogs as they confounded the odds week after week and season after season, playing a more pragmatic style of football with never-say-die defence and the sting of a cobra in attack – including steering the club to European football for the first time since the 1960s, following a seventh placed finish in 2018.
The decision to dismiss Dyche, then, smacked of desperation.
Yet two home wins in four days, coupled with a draw and a defeat for Everton, have moved Burney out of the drop zone with just under a month of the campaign remaining,
Among joyous scenes after the final whistle against Wolves, with the home fans chanting ‘We are staying up!’, owner Alan Pace allowed himself a smile of satisfaction in the stands.
Caretaker boss Mike Jackson hugged injured Clarets skipper Ben Mee, who is part of the new-look coaching team, on the touchline before the Burnley players were roared off the pitch to a standing ovation.
The last two games, home successes against Southampton and Wolves, will certainly be considered Premier League highlights for those at Turf Moor if survival is assured.
In a far cry from their win against Merseyside neighbours Liverpool last term, Everton slipped in the bottom three after a 2-0 loss at Anfield.
With a game in hand though, they still have their fate in their own hands but there is a reason Everton are third-bottom in the league: they’ve been the league’s third-worst team. With just six games remaining, they are in serious danger of breaking the English game’s second-longest run of top-flight football – only Arsenal have stuck it out longer than their 68 years.
Despite a difficult run-in, manager Frank Lampard can take heart from how his team played at city rivals Liverpool on Sunday: organised and doughty in defence, enterprising and swift in attack – a spirit encapsulated by a contretemps towards the end of the first half when, after Abdoulaye Doucouré committed a foul to get play stopped so team-mate Richarlison could receive treatment, almost the entire team piled into the kerfuffle, including goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.
Obviously, there is more to football than aggression and if, over the course of the season, Everton had shown as much as they did on Sunday, they’d not be in the mess they are. But similarly, if they can maintain it, they might yet save themselves.
Lampard’s big problem is a lack of goal threat, not helped by the constant injury problems suffered by England striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Given their size and means, the £561 million spent in transfer fees since Farhad Moshiri’s takeover, an Everton relegation would surely be one of the most spectacular fiascos in the modern history of football.
It is going to be fascinating to see how it plays out over the next four weeks.
As for the side directly above Burnley and Everton, it got a bit niggly in the Leeds United’s clash at Palace.
Perhaps they realised that, while five points clear of the relegation zone, their next three matches are against reigning champions Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea.
Can a third team be drawn into this? I don’t think so.
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