Premier League: Aston Villa Stays Up; United and Chelsea Return to Champions League

LEICESTER, England — Those final few minutes, the ones upon which an entire season rests, do something strange to time. The clock seems to slow, each second clawing and scratching for its moment before it yields to the next. But each is so pregnant with meaning, or with the possibility of meaning, that even in these moments that last an age, it can be hard to keep up.

Leicester City is losing at home to Manchester United, and Chelsea is winning at home to Wolves. United and Chelsea will make the Champions League. Unless Leicester can make something of this free kick: The goalkeeper, Kasper Schmeichel, has gone up.

Aston Villa has scored at West Ham. That should be enough to ensure its survival: There are only four minutes left. Bournemouth is ahead at Everton, and Watford is threatening a comeback at Arsenal, but as things stand, both would be relegated. In the time it takes a screen to refresh, though, West Ham scores to draw level. It is back on the knife’s edge. Another goal and Villa might yet fall.

This was the final day as the Premier League would have wanted it, the final day that the Premier League, not so long ago — not so long as it feels, in this year in which every day has somehow felt like a lifetime and yet every week has passed in the blink of an eye — worried it might never have, as its clubs bickered and squabbled and the coronavirus pandemic threatened to claim the season itself.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/sports/soccer/premier-league-decision-day.html