Relegation fight, Salah's last game and Guardiola's likely exit as Premier League reaches finale

The Premier League will say goodbye to West Ham or Tottenham on Sunday.

Mohamed Salah and Bernardo Silva, too.

Likely Pep Guardiola as well.

Emotions are sure to run high in the final round of a season that has already delivered a relatively new champion — Arsenal hadn't won the title since 2004 before clinching it on Tuesday — but still has plenty of stories to tell when all 10 games are played concurrently.

Like which of two recent winners of European competitions — 2023 Conference League champion West Ham or 2025 Europa League champion Tottenham — will be the final team to drop into the Championship, joining Wolverhampton and Burnley in getting relegated.

West Ham has it all to do to maintain its 14-year top-flight status.

The team that plays in the 68,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in east London occupies third-to-last place — the final relegation spot — and is two points behind Tottenham with an inferior goal difference of 12.

West Ham must, therefore, beat Leeds at home and also needs Tottenham to lose at home to Everton in north London.

Everton has collected more points away than at home this season and Spurs have won only once at home in the league since the opening weekend, so all is not lost for West Ham.

Tottenham being relegated would be a huge development for English soccer. Spurs have been an ever-present in the Premier League since the competition was rebranded in 1992 and last played in the second tier in the 1977-78 season.

Salah's Liverpool exit turned sour

It's not quite been the farewell that Salah might have hoped for at Liverpool.

The Egypt winger is leaving after nine years as one of the club's greatest ever players but not on the best terms with his manager, having taken an indirect swing at Arne Slot in a social media post last weekend when he said Liverpool needed to recover its identity and “go back to being the heavy metal attacking team that opponents fear.”

This latest public swipe came five months after he spoke of his relationship with Slot breaking down and complaining that "someone wanted me to get all of the blame” for Liverpool's shocking run of results at the time.

How Slot deals with this will be interesting. Salah will want a big send-off in his final game, which is against Brentford at Anfield, but might it be seen as a sign of weakness from Slot if he doesn't drop Salah for his latest outburst?

It's still a significant game for fifth-placed Liverpool, which needs a point to guarantee Champions League qualification. Bournemouth, which visits Nottingham Forest, is three points back in sixth place and has an inferior goal difference of six compared to Liverpool.

Salah has netted 257 goals in 441 games for Liverpool and is third in Liverpool’s all-time scorers’ list.

Guardiola's exit looks certain

Guardiola hasn't officially said he is leaving Manchester City after 10 years, but all the signs are there that his record-breaking, era-defining tenure is coming to a close.

Speaking on Tuesday after City lost the title race, Guardiola didn't dismiss widespread reports that he was stepping down at the end of the season and was going to be replaced by Enzo Maresca. Even his playful conduct in news conferences — and his willingness to speak about wider, deeper, non-soccer issues — hinted at a less burdened, less intense Guardiola, of someone potentially preparing to give up the reins.

Guardiola said he would be talking to City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak this week before making his decision. An emotional guy, Guardiola is guaranteed to prompt tears at Etihad Stadium if City's home match against Aston Villa is his farewell.

Silva and Stones also departing

Also saying goodbye at the Etihad will be Silva and John Stones, two cornerstones and emblems of the trophy-laden Guardiola era who have confirmed their City exits.

These are also the final Premier League games in charge for Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth and Oliver Glasner at Crystal Palace, which hosts newly crowned champion Arsenal. Arsenal's players will be getting their hands on the trophy at Selhurst Park.

Bournemouth could reach Champions League

Four years after promotion to the Premier League, Bournemouth — with its tiny 11,300-seat stadium and about-to-depart coach — could seal a fairytale place in the Champions League.

It will need a combination of results to do so, however.

Bournemouth is in sixth place and that finishing position will be enough to get Champions League qualification this season if Aston Villa — the newly crowned Europa League champion — finishes in fifth place.

For Villa to drop from fourth to fifth and Liverpool to climb from fifth to fourth, Villa needs to lose to Man City and Liverpool has to beat Brentford. Bournemouth then needs to get a point at Nottingham Forest to secure sixth place.

Brighton, in seventh, is three points behind Bournemouth going into its home match against Manchester United.

Bournemouth has already made its own piece of history by qualifying for a European competition for the first time in its 127-year existence, with the minimum of a Europa League berth — for the team placing seventh — guaranteed.

It has by far the smallest stadium in the top flight and got into the Premier League for the first time only in 2015, before relegation in 2020 and another promotion in 2022. Bournemouth was bought in December 2022 by the Black Knight consortium fronted by American businessman Bill Foley and which owns the Vegas Golden Knights in the NHL.

One of the new ownership's many good decisions included hiring Iraola as coach in 2023. The Spaniard announced in April he was leaving and will be replaced by Marco Rose, the former Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund coach.

Haaland set for another Golden Boot

Man City striker Erling Haaland is set to clinch the Golden Boot, awarded to the league's top scorer, for the third time in his four seasons in English soccer.

Haaland has 27 goals, five more than his nearest rival, Brentford striker Igor Thiago. No other player has more than 16.

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