Good afternoon and welcome to our live blog of this afternoon’s Premier League games; we will be focusing on the live scores and updates from the matches involving Everton, Leeds United and Leicester City.
Everton are at home to Bournemouth. Leeds United are at home to Tottenham. Leicester City are at home to West Ham United. All of the matches kick off at 4.30pm.
The state of play is as follows: Everton are 17th with 33 points. Leicester 18th with 31 points. Leeds 19th with 31 points. Everton’s goal difference is -24. Leicester’s, much the best, just -18. Leeds – 27.
Who needs what? Well, Everton are definitely staying up if they win. If Everton draw, they are still okay as long as Leicester don’t win.
Leicester have to win, but even then their fate is not in their hands and they need a favour from Bournemouth.
Leeds need to win but will still need Bournemouth to help them out.
Leicester boss Dean Smith says: “We are a few points short of where I expected to be and that’s why it has come down to the last one. This would be a very proud day if we do it, but we have to win our game and rely on other results. Each escape will have its own merits, the one at Villa with four games to go was seven points. That in itself was a big ask, this has been a big ask and hopefully we can do it.”
“This league is precarious. You’ve got to have really good models now to stay in the league. You look at Brighton and Brentford, two really good models of clubs, one I know very well because I worked there. It is hard. You need the finance behind it but it’s not just about finance as you can see in Brentford’s case. There are many different ways to stay in the league but it’s a real tough league. Very quickly you can go and lose two or three games on the spin. All of a sudden that just drains the confidence of players.”
Meanwhile, Sam Allardyce has admitted that Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani is “hugely frustrated and disappointed. He didn’t expect at the start of the season that the club would be in this position.
“He didn’t expect he would have to employ three managers to get out of this position. He’s hugely frustrated. The only way you sort that out is at the end of the season, have a look at the whole structure of the football club, and do whatever needs to be done.
“But in the meantime the only focus is one big game, one massive game for the players and for us all in controlling the destiny of Leeds, only by winning and hoping that other people lose. It’s not what we wanted, but it’s the position we’re in.”