With J Hutcherson -- Picking up the story from a few weeks ago on Hannover 96's relegation struggle.... Steve Cherundolo made his return from injury over the weekend, and Hannover won for the first time since October 31st. Unfortunately for Hannover, Nurnberg also took three points.
The Nurnberg result was a shocker, tagging Bayer Leverkusen with their first loss of the season. Had Nurnberg lost as expected, the Hannover result would have meant the two teams swapping places. As it stands, Nurnberg are 15th and Hannover is a point behind at 16th.
Barring a ridiculous collapse higher up the table, Hannover's real competition for keeping their topflight status will be against Nurnberg and 18th-place SC Freiburg, currently trailing Hannover on goal differential. There's a six-point gap between 15th and 14th, significant when talking about clubs that just got their fifth win of the season.
Meanwhile, Aston Villa are in the best position of any top four outsider to make a real run in the Premier League. Yes, that means a fight for fourth-place, with the gap between fourth and third at a dozen points.
On 26 games played, they're currently seventh with 45 points. They trail Liverpool in sixth by three points and Manchester City in 5th by four points. City is level on points and goal differential with fourth-place Spurs.
What gives Villa the advantage is games played. They're one back of everybody else in the Premier League courtesy of Cup replays. Manchester City has played 27 games to Villa's 26, but the rest of the teams ahead of them have played 28 or 29.
That's not much of an advantage if fixture congestion becomes an issue, but it could be worse. Their postponed games are against Hull away, Sunderland at home, and Everton at home. Two teams in relegation trouble and the other currently four points behind Villa. They have one game left against a team currently in the top-four, Chelsea on March 27th.
As for Everton, that's another story where we ran the numbers. Twice actually. Had Villa not needed that postponement, Everton would have had a much easier run in. Now they have postponements with Villa and Manchester City. Good news for taking points from teams directly in front of them, but at the same time more difficult than hoping someone else did the hard work while you take points off a team further down the table.
For both, the path to fourth is clear. They aren't facing anything close to Manchester City's scenario, playing Manchester United, Arsenal, and then Villa over consecutive games. They also have postponements against Spurs and Everton. Liverpool still has Manchester United at Old Trafford and Chelsea at Anfield on May 1st, a week before the Premier League season ends. Spurs beat all of them in level of difficulty, playing Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United consecutively in April.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
