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International Break - Down the Stretch They Come!

Dave Johnson, Gio & Key Races

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nick lochner
March 26, 2024

BIG Thanks to a Burnley fan and CleanSheet subscriber for the gift! Much Appreciated! and congrats on bringing a win to the Clarets on your first trip to Turf Moor!

Up The Clarets!

In Today’s CleanSheet:

  • And Down the Stretch They Come 🏇🏇🏇

  • Across the Board🥇🥈🥉

And Down the Stretch They Come🏇🏇🏇

8 weekends remain, about 25% of the schedule, the final ¼ of the season.

18 of 20 teams have ALOT to play for across 3 key “RACES” to the finish:

  • 3 Team Title Race: Arsenal, Liverpool, City.

  • 8 Team Race for Europe: Villa, Spurs, MU, W Ham, BHA, Wolves, Newcastle, Chelsea.

  • 7 Team Race to Avoid Relegation: Palace, Brentford, Everton, Luton, Forest, Burnley, SU.

  • 2 Teams really don’t fit in any of the three races: Fulham, Bournemouth. Both are too many points and too many teams behind the race for Europe, and far enough ahead of the relegation battle.

  • Chelsea has the opportunity to collect the most points with 11 matches remaining, the rest of the teams have 10 or 9 matches remaining.

Finish Line = Survival Sunday

In the EPL the finish line is the final match day of the season, Survival Sunday (Wiki), when all 10 matches are played at the same time to create a relatively fair playing field where all teams know going in how many points they need to survive and advance.

Let’s take a look at each race and the schedule each team needs to navigate.

3 Team Title Race

  • Full Schedule. All 3 teams are playing in European competitions and City have the FA Cup.

  • Gunners at City. Out of the gate, the only remaining matchup between the three. Winner will have an advantage, a draw favors Liverpool.

  • Back-to-back-to-back. Liverpool with tough week of 3 road matches in 8 days (April 20-27).

  • Lift the Cup at Home. All three clubs have tough road games on 5/11 but get to finish at home, will it come down to the last day? Will there be 3 cups sent out, one to each stadium?

  • 4 Common Opponents. Of each team’s remaining 10 matches, everyone will play BHA, Villa, Wolves and Spurs - all currently top 10 in the Table.

8 Team Race for Europe

  • Moving Target. To say it directly, this year’s Europe competitions matter to determine how many qualification spots leagues get in next year’s Europe competitions. For the PL that means 7 or 8 spots.

    • UEFA uses coefficients/algorithms to determine the top country leagues.

    • The Premier League currently sit 3rd behind Italy and Germany but it’s close and could change.

    • The top 2 countries leagues will get an additional team into the CL.

    • The PL will get 8 slots if the remaining clubs keep winning: City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Villa and West Ham in Europe.

    • Last year the PL qualified 7 teams into Europe, 4 Champions League, 2 Europa League, 1 Europa Conference AND got an 8th when West Ham qualified for EL by winning the ECL but did not finish in the top 7 of the Table.

  • 4 Clubs will have to balance additional competitions during the stretch run.

    • Europa. Villa and West Ham are both playing for a Europa League Title.

    • FA Cup. Man United and Chelsea are playing for an FA Cup Title.

  • Road Finales. 6 clubs are on the road for Survival Sunay.

  • Hill to Climb. Chelsea is behind now but have an extra game to play and get the bottom 4 teams in the table.

  • Rough Track. Villa has a lead in the points but a rough schedule, all three title contenders (2 on the road).

  • 5 spots or 4. Arsenal, Liverpool and City will make the CL next year barring a collapse. So, all these teams below are playing for 4 or 5 spots. They will be paying close attention to the coefficients. A 5th CL spot means 5 of the teams below will make Europe next year, 2 into the CL, 2 EL, 1ECL.

7 Team Race to Avoid Relegation

  • The Great Escape. Is there hope for Burnley or Sheffield United fans?

    • In 2014, Leicester City had registered 2 wins in 24 matches and were at the bottom of the table in April with 19 points. They then won 7 of 9 to stay up.

    • To add to the lore, LCFC went on to shock everyone the next year and WIN the PL Title.

    • Ranking the greatest ever relegation escapes. (givemesport)

  • April 20 has 6 of the 7 teams facing off against each other (purple circles below).

  • Everton. The Toffee’s have had to win on the final day of the last two seasons to stay up. They are hoping it doesn’t come to that this year with a trip to Arsenal on the schedule. They do have 5 matches against the bottom 6 remaining, more than any other side fighting to avoid relegation.

  • Palace. Really? They have an 8-point lead and 10 matches remaining, why are they even in the conversation. Well, they have the toughest schedule (on paper) remaining and a HUGE match to kick it off at Forest.

  • FFP. Will we see any more point deductions from Financial Fair Play reviews? Uncertain, but still possible. Also, Forest has appealed their deduction. Will they get points back this season?

Did You Know…..

Dave Johnson was working for a law office while going to school to get his degree. The law office had a luxury box at Cahokia Downs, a racetrack in St Louis, that Dave attended. One night the track announcer got sick after the first race and Dave offered to announce the next race. It turned out he was pretty good, and he went back the next night and never stopped. In the 1960’s he started using the phrase “and down the stretch they come” as part of his call. The phrase became synonymous with the horse racing’s Triple Crown. In 2010 Johnson decided to trademark the phrase when Amazon started using it - he donates all the royalty money he gets from the use of the phrase to racing charities. Here is a longer form story from Thoroughbred Racing Commentary with more history and detail if you’re interested.

Across the Board 🥇🥈🥉

The term across the board originated from betting the horses in the early 1900s. If you liked a horse and wanted to place a bet on them finishing 1st, 2nd AND 3rd you would place your bet “across the board”. Here we will use it to mean additional topics to discuss, Potpourri.

USMNT. Again, Dos e Cero.

@FOXSoccer (X)

USA 2-0 Mexico. 

That’s more like it. Since 2021, the US has not lost to Mexico, 5W 2D, and includes 3 championship finals. Quite the streak against El Tri (Wiki). It was a deserved title as the USMNT looked better and deserved the win. Tyler Adams (Bournemouth) who recently returned from a long hamstring injury was on a time limit and made the most of it putting the US in the lead at 45’. Gio Reyna (Forest) added a 2H goal, but it was the Pulisic (AC Milan) that led to the goal. There has been lots of noise around Gregg Berhalter (manager), this might settle that down a little.

Gio Reyna is the Player of the Tournament, and Matt Turner Best Goalkeeper, now can they get minutes at Forest?

@usmntonly (X)

@USMNT (X)

7 Seconds

Germany played France in a tune up match. They took the lead in 7 seconds. (X @meninblazers)

The Championship

Can’t wait for Saturday’s matches? The Championship is heating up and back Friday with all 24 teams playing.

A full season in The Championship is 46 matches. Here are the current standings.

  • Top 2 Teams are Promoted to the Premier League.

  • Next 4 play-off for one spot.

  • Bottom 3 are relegated to League 1.

@YouOrnsWFC (X)

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