What to know about nail-biting Premier League final weekend

Of those five teams fighting for positions at the top of the table, Manchester City finds itself in the best spot simply because it controls its destiny.  If it wins at home against Fulham, City will make the Champions League regardless of how its competitors perform. 

Winning against Fulham, though, won't be easy. The 10th-place Cottagers went unbeaten against league champion Liverpool this season and lost 3-2 in wild fashion against City in October. That match came down to the final minute, and City coach Pep Guardiola believes the same thing will happen here.

"It will be the last moment, when 95 minutes are up, it will be decided if we will play in the Champions League," Guardiola said, per The Guardian. "So I know we have to arrive at the end, the last corner, and we have to be ready.”

Behind City, three teams — Newcastle, Chelsea and Aston Villa — are level on points. They'll each need to better the others to guarantee advancement. 

Newcastle finds itself in pole position here; it leads the others on key tiebreakers and faces checked-out, 13th-place Everton. Aston Villa finds itself in the next-best position with a do-or-die match against ragged, exhausted Manchester United. The Red Devils will enter that match with nothing to play for, fresh off their heartbreaking loss to the Spurs in the Europa League final. It's hard to see Villa dropping points.

Chelsea has the hardest path through Sunday's most important game. It will face Nottingham Forest in a match that could change everything for both clubs. Chelsea enters this match in the final Champions League spot of fifth place; Forest enters it just outside of European contention in seventh. If Forest pulls off an upset, it will send one of its moneyed competitors out of Europe altogether; if Chelsea hangs on, it will eliminate Forest and guarantee itself a spot in some European competition next season.

Forest's performance in the Premier League in 2024-25 has been the stuff of legend. It entered the season with low expectations and a bloated, awkward squad pulled together by a series of short-time coaches. Coach Nuno Espirito Santo was widely expected to struggle, and many bookmakers had him as the odds-on favorite to be the first coach fired in the league.

That didn't happen. Santo's piecemeal squad has played well. Forest won two consecutive Champions League titles in 1979 and 1980, but it hasn't been back in the continental championship since. 

“We are trying to make something magical happen,” Santo said of his club's clash with Chelsea, per The Guardian. “It is going to be a special game.”

Each of these matches, along with the rest of the final Premier League games, will begin Sunday (May 25) at 11 a.m. ET.