I read a great line somewhere a few days ago to the effect of the Premier League table is pointless to look at after one or two games because it is comparative to the first fifty meters of a marathon race were the man in the gorilla outfit still has a chance to lead. Still, I can’t help but take  a quick peak and dismay a touch at the fact that Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United already sit in the top three places. Blackpool were sitting pretty just last week but already things are taking a familiar shape and I think already we’ve lost the chance of seeing some strange name at the top of the Premier League table if the form of Chelsea is anything to go by. They look absolutely deadly with twelve goals in just two games played.

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It is the final game of the English football season and the English Football version of the NFL’s Super Bowl. It is a day when people get together all across the British Isles, have a BBQ perhaps, drink a few beers and watch the big game. Last year I described how this game was seen as the Gateway to the Summer, for once completed you knew the season was done and it really felt like summer had arrived.

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So Chelsea have done it, United have come up short remaining on 18 league titles and all is well with the world from the eyes of a Liverpool fan, right? Well, kind of yes though it would have been nice over the course of the season if Liverpool had managed to put in some kind of challenge when, as it turned out, they could only manage a very poor 7th place, their worst finish since 1993/94 when they finished 8th. But now isn’t the time to rant about Liverpool’s season but rather talk about Chelsea’s victory and United’s failure to capture a forth straight Premier League title.

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Sunday is another one of them fine days that comes along a few times throughout the year when you want to do nothing more than sit down on the sofa and move only to feed and water yourself while watching sporting action and in some cases, sporting history, develop before your eyes. Tomorrow morning I will arise bright and not so breeze to watch the Spanish Grand Prix were Michael Schumacher is expected to finally come good in his new look car and then a few hours watch the drama of who will win the Premier League unfold. Riviting stuff. Later there will be Stanley Cup playoff hockey and the final day of the Players Championship in the Golf.

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“I am confident and I have to be confident,” said Ferguson, whose team trail Chelsea by one point with two games to go and play at Sunderland on Sunday. “Great clubs don’t throw their histories away. They don’t throw their traditions away for one game. In 1995 it was exactly the same. We depended and hoped on Liverpool producing and we got that from them. I remember Roy Evans [the then Liverpool manager] saying to me: ‘You have to earn the right to win the title’ and that stands today. I think Liverpool will do their best on Sunday. They have to, there is no doubt about that. They have been in 10 European finals and won 18 titles, so that’s a fantastic history. You don’t throw that away just because of one game. And do you think their fans want to go home saying their team capitulated and didn’t try?”

— Daniel Taylor, The Guardian, 1 May 2011

The first words of Ferguson’s quote says it all. He has to be confident. He has to be hopeful as well and his comments above are the words of a man desperate for Liverpool to bail him out an help his team win the title. How ironic that is after all the hate and dislike towards the club over this season, and others. After his tit for tat with Rafa last season, he now requires the Spaniard to motivate a bunch of players with nothing left to play for other than a position above Everton in the table.

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Some people half expected Chelsea to struggle today. I’m not sure why but I think they felt that with United winning on Saturday that Chelsea would feel a little bit of the pressure following a defeat to Spurs last week and find a way to screw up their game against Stoke today and in turn keep United on top of the table and into the driving seat for the title. Either that or they just read into Alex Ferguson’s mind games when he said that Chelsea would find it hard today. But then Chelsea went out and stuck seven past Stoke and moved back to the top of the table with two games remaining, putting the pressure onto United to beat Chelsea to the title on points because goal difference is not likely to happen now.

Of course, Liverpool – who won 4-0 themselves today relegating Burnley – stand in the way of Chelsea’s title dream, or, you could say stand in the way of United’s title hopes depending on their state of mind next weekend. Win the game and help United towards a 19th title, or stick out the youth team and ensure that United do not move clear of their own record of 18 titles? It’s going to be really interesting to watch and I know I, as a Liverpool fan, might, for the first and hopefully last time ever, be content to see us ‘falter’ for want of a better word.