Crystal Palace nears safety

With Manchester City wrapping up the Premier League title a week ago (courtesy of Manchester United losing to the worst team in the league, relegation-bound West Bromwich Albion), the more exciting aspect of the remainder of the season now is watching which teams get relegated, and which ones stay in the Premier League.

And it's quite close. Though the previously mentioned WBA is definitely going to be relegated, nothing is certain about the rest of the teams, and that extends all the way up to the 13th-place team, Brighton and Hove Albion, which has 36 points.  Crystal Palace, West Ham, and Huddersfield Town all have 35 points,  covering the 14th through 16th spots, and unlucky 17 is Swansea City, with 33 points.  18th and 19th are Southampton (which amazingly enough was in an FA Cup semifinal against Chelsea on Sunday), and Stoke City, both with 29 points.  So uneasy Swansea City is four points ahead (1 draw and 1 win), with the tied trio at 35 points six points above the current drop line (2 wins).

Crystal Palace gained a point in a draw with Watford on the weekend, and maybe should have had a penalty kick after Wilfried Zaha was brought down near the goal (and he was actually given a yellow card for embellishing, i.e., "diving", though it didn't look like he did).  Now they have three games left.  One win in those three games would probably be enough for them to be truly safe from relegation and insure another season in the Premier League.  If they defeated Stoke City on May 5, that would probably seal their survival while pushing Stoke down to the Championship (the second tier).  Like CP, Stoke City has three more games left to play.

Southampton actually has four more games, which gives them one more shot at points than CP has.  West Ham has four more, but two of them are against Manchester City and Manchester United. Brighton and Hove Albion have four more games too, as do Huddersfield and Swansea City.  So as these games are played, the Crystal Palace fans have to sweat a little more until the schedule evens out.

Because some of those games are between the teams near the bottom, one win in those cases could seal the deal for another team.  A big game for the bottom dwellers is the last game of the season between Swansea City and Stoke City.  It's possible that could end up being a game where the winner stays up and the loser goes down. 

So, the Eagles (as the CP team is called) are close to safety, but not quite in the fully confident zone yet.  For the team's sake, and for the fans, I hope they close it out successfully.  I'll discuss some other thoughts about this later.