Game of the Week: #18 West Ham v #13 Newcastle (Sunday 12:30 EDT)
West Ham are in certifiable do or die mode, where anything but 3 points could see them automatically relegated come Tuesday, when fellow relegation battlers Tottenham face a reeling Chelsea side that hasn’t won in 3 months.
Honorable mention: #5 Aston Villa v #4 Liverpool (Friday 3:00 EDT)
The winner here will clinch a top 5 finish, and therefore qualification to next season’s Champions League. Failure in this regard would hit Liverpool a lot harder, after a record-setting summer in terms of transfer spend. A draw opens the door to mutually assured destruction, although the Villans have another path into the UCL by winning the Europa League final next Wednesday. They are betting favorites in that match vs. FC Freiburg of Germany