The Champions League competition is now the only one going in the Premier League but weve got rather the struggle to look forward to. Five factors independent Manchester City in third and Aston Villa in twelfth, while Nottingham Forest and title-bunglers Arsenal was fingers crossed also get dragged into it.
Success may well hinge on the impact of players coming back from injury and weve picked out ten stars set to return before the end of the season who could strike telling blows to aid their teams.
Weve used the excellent Premier Injuries for the predicted return dates of players, in chronological order.
Oscar Bobb ( Manchester City ) Imminent
Amid the widespread incredulity last season that Manchester City hadnt realised that Cole Palmer was the Messiah before allowing him to defect to Chelsea and tear up the Premier League, one of the mitigations for that undoubted blunder was the emergence of Bobb into the first team.
He featured for only 295 Premier League hours last word but we saw enough, with his fleet-footed stoppage-time champion against Newcastle at St James Park the moment where we all reluctantly conceded that City had unearthed a gem of a player that they didnt even need at the moment. But football comes at you quickly and they really need him now.
Romeo Lavia ( Chelsea ) March 2nd
Chelsea have won 1.8 points per game with Lavia in the team compared to 1.7 with Moises Caicedo and 1.67 with Enzo Fernandez. That doesnt seem that significant a difference until you consider that the average points tally required to finish fifth (almost certainly meaning Champions League qualification in 2024/25) across the last five seasons has been 66 points and 1.8 PPG yields a tally of 68.4 points across 38 games, while 1.7 would leave Enzo Marescas side short on 64.6.
Chelsea arent just more effective with Lavia in the team but are also a dramatically more entertaining side to watch, with his ability to beat the press through taking the ball on the half-turn in tight spaces opening up every attacking option immediately. No-one else in the club can do that, meaning Chelsea are often slow and repetitive when are not in the group. And critically, Palmer is far less powerful.
Nicolas Jackson ( Chelsea ) March 2nd
Christopher Nkunku got a goal against Southampton, but frankly if he hadnt he may as well have packed this football stuff in, and actually its Pedro Neto thats taken on the central role in Jacksons absence owing to his superior movement. But as is the case with Kai Havertz and Arsenal right now, theres been a real You Dont Know What Youve Got Till Its Gone feeling during Jacksons absence.
Positive, his finishing isnt always up to snuff but At Least He Gets In The Positions To Score, and he looks like a terrible dream to sing against with all that speed and strength, the pointy limbs and no small amount of skullduggery. Chelsea are a unique animal with him leading their range.
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Harry Wilson ( Fulham ) March 5th
That noise you hear is us scraping the barrel for a nice even number, because actually Fulham have been doing rather well since Wilson fractured his foot in the defeat to Manchester United at the end of January, beating Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Wolves to make themselves worthy of a place on this list.
But the Wales global has undoubtedly played his part this year, scoring that incredible stoppage-time prepare having come off the bench to conquer Brentford, as well as the delayed equaliser at Stamford Bridge before Rodrigo Muniz grabbed the winner.
Amadou Onana ( Aston Villa ) March 8th
Forty-five goals is far too many to have conceded after 28 games if youre a Champions League football club.  , Only the bottom five have shipped more and it would be fine if Unai Emery was adopting a Tottenham-style punch-for-punch mantra that may actually suit them with Marcus Rashford adding to their number of very quick and dynamic players on the break. But theyve only scored 40 goals and the Spaniard remains obsessed with controlling the game despite his sides inability to wrestle and maintain that authority over proceedings.
Theres a fair amount of dawdling at the back which definitely doesnt help, but their issues often seem to come thanks to a lack of protection from the midfield pairing of Youri Tielemans and John McGinn. Both fine footballers on their day were not sure we would ever tire of watching Tielemans stroking the ball around the place but their influence is front-footed, and they could do with Onana to provide some real presence and steel against opposition No. 10s, who often have a lovely time against them. No Villa player has more tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes ( 4.75 ).
Joelinton ( Newcastle ) March 10th
Were big fans of both Joe Willock and Lewis Miley, but Joelinton hits different. With him in a midfield three with Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali it feels like theyve got every base covered: Guimaraes taking the ball under pressure and stroking it around, Tonali darting around the place making the difficult look absurdly simple, knitting everything together, Joelinton constantly in the face of opposition players, putting himself about and breaking the lines.
Bukayo Saka ( Arsenal ) March 16th
Mikel Arteta insisted before their goalless draw with Nottingham Forest that he would give up the title race over my dead bodywhich given theyre now 13 points behind Liverpool suggests hes also considering the possibility of them slipping out of the Champions League qualification spots seeing as fifth-placed Newcastle are ten points behind them.
Sakas return will end all hope of what would be a truly hilarious slide into the Europa League.
Marcos Senesi ( Bournemouth ) April 1st
His injury at the end of November opened up a spot in the first team for Dean Huijsen, who is now predictably wanted by literally everyone as hes a 6ft 5, two-footed, ball-playing teenage centre-back who will have had Senesi questioning whether he would regain his place when he returns after some very impressive performances.
But Bournemouth have lost the last two and Iraola may feel that 27-year-old Senesis experience may hold them in good stead in the run-in, despite the excellence of 19-year-old Huijsen and 22-year-old Illya Zabarnyi in his absence.
Ferdi Kadioglu ( Brighton ) April 1st
The Turkey international was something of a marquee signing in the summer, with Kadioglu dodging a bullet by joining Brighton amid big interest from Manchester United. He was instead struck down by injury early in the season and has missed the last 17 Premier League games with a poorly toe.
He suffered the boo-boo against Liverpool having scored a wonder goal to make everyone sit up and take notice in that very same game.
Rodri ( Manchester City ) June 1st
Youll notice the return date is after the end of the season, but Rodri has said he wants to feature and while Pep Guardiola will be very wary of rushing him back too soon, if City need to win games at the end of the campaign to qualify for the Champions League and ensure theyre not entirely f***ed by PSR, assuming theyve not already been entirely f***ed by the Premier League itselfplaying a 90 per cent fit Ballon dOr winner will surely be considered a risk worth taking.
Were also fascinated to see what sort of difference he would make this season, rather than waiting for him to return next term, when we wont be able to tell quite so clearly after what we suspect will be quite the player overhaul whether City being a load of balls was indeed all down to his injury.
