Liverpool Vs Brighton - English Premier League Final Game - Sunday May 13th

Sunday is jam packed full of football with all 20 Premier League teams in action, as is usual for the final round of the season each game will take place at the same time. It's been a pretty crazy season but coming into this final game there is really only 2 things that remain to be cleared up.

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Liverpool Vs Brighton

Liverpool lost their last game against Chelsea leaving the door open for the Londoners to still sneak into the top 4 and join Man City, Man United and Spurs in the Champions League next season. Liverpool of course can automatically qualify for it by defeating Real Madrid in the final but we will discuss that in another post. Chelsea failed to ramp up the pressure on Liverpool when they dropped points to Huddersfield following their victory meaning Liverpool should just need a point at Anfield to take the 4th spot thanks to their superior goal difference.

With the Champions League taking priority Liverpool's form in the league has taken a dive. They've won just once in their last 5 as the teamsheets have seen constant changes to rest players for the mid week games in Europe. They are however still undefeated in the league this season while playing at home and will surely not want to end that great record on the very last game. They drew 0-0 last time out at home but had won the previous 4 in a row, they've won 11 home games and drew 7 scoring plenty of goals and have been extremely solid defensively too. Only Spurs (2) and Man City (3) have scored more than 1 goal against Liverpool at Anfield all season with the Reds managing to keep 11 clean sheets.

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Another factor that has played a part in the recent dip for Liverpool has been the series of injuries, particularly at centre back and midfield. Joel Matip, Joe Gomez, Emre Can and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain all remain unavailable for this game but Adam Lallana is likely to have a spot on the bench as he looks to complete his comeback from quite a long spell on the sidelines.

It will be interesting to see what team Jurgen Klopp plays for this one, the final i not until May 26th and so there will be plenty of time for the players to recover. However the last thing anyone wants to see is a key player injured and missing out on the final so there could be a chance some are rested. Egyptian forward and top scorer Mo Salah will certainly want to play, he has 31 goals so far in the Premier League and has expressed a desire to break the record he currently shares with Ronaldo, Suarez and Alan Shearer and become the top scorer of all time in a 38 game season.

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Brighton have little to play for other than pride having successfully secured enough points already to see them safe from relegation. Liverpool handed them their worst defeat of the season earlier when they met in the reverse fixture when they lost 1-5 last December. However Brighton have managed some success against the bigger teams this season with victories of Arsenal and a recent 1-0 victory over Man United.

Their form away from home has been pretty poor though, having just 2 wins on the road all season. They have not managed to win away for 12 games and have only scored 5 goals in those games.

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Liverpool can still get 4th place with a loss should Chelsea slip up at Newcastle however I don't believe Reds fans will be requiring former manager Rafa to do us any favours as Liverpool should really have no problem doing it for themselves. Brighton have hardly scored away from home all season and Liverpool despite a few slip ups have looked really solid. This should really be an easy victory for Liverpool and honestly if they cannot defeat Brighton at Anfield to secure the top 4 then they really don't deserve it.

Prediction - Liverpool Win - 3-0

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Rest of the League Fixtures

Southampton Vs Man City
Swansea Vs Stoke
Tottenham Vs Leicester
West Ham Vs Everton
Burnley Vs Bournmeouth
Crystal Palace Vs West Brom
Huddersfield Vs Arsenal
Man United Vs Watford
Newcastle Vs Chelsea

As mentioned above Chelsea have to go for a victory against Newcastle and will be hoping Liverpool lose to Brighton. A Liverpool draw would see Chelsea needing a massive victory to overturn a huge goal difference deficit.

The only other thing left to sort out on the final day is who will join West Brom and Stoke to drop down into the Championship next season. It was effectively already determined midweek when Swansea lost at home to Southampton and when Huddersfield picked up a point against Chelsea the following day.

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Those results mean Swansea sit in 18th and will not only have to defeat Stoke but also hope for Southampton to lose to Man City and that between them both games can swing the 9 goal deficit they have to Southampton's goal difference. It's possible the champions could run riot in Southampton and for Swansea to pull off a big win against already relegated Stoke to see a miraculous recovery on the final day but I think sadly for Swansea they needed to have at least drawn on Tuesday to have stayed up.

It's perhaps not as exciting a finale as we could have hoped for at certain parts of the season when the relegation dog fight was at it's peak with 10 teams all scrambling to survive. But I am sure fans of those teams who have already earned safety won't be complaining.