IN FOOTBALL, where two and two sometimes make five, it is unwise to presume the obvious. Nevertheless, the Premier League championship would appear to be all over.
If Manchester United beat Middlesbrough at lunchtime today, Liverpool will need to win at Wimbledon tomorrow to keep their hopes even theoretically alive before Newcastle United, who are at West Ham tomorrow, visit Old Trafford on Thursday.
Whichever way one looks at it, Alex Ferguson is about to celebrate his fourth title in five seasons.
The contest may yet provide the doubly ironic postscript of Kenny Dalglish's Newcastle team not only pipping Liverpool, his old club, for second place and the chance to play in next season's Champions League, but doing so with rather less of the swash and buckle which distinguished Kevin Keegan's bold though doomed attempt to deny Manchester United the championship last time.
At Highbury on Saturday, Newcastle, having lost under Keegan to Arsenal's 10 men at St James' Park in November, won with a similarly depleted team, with Keith Gillespie dismissed for two bookable offences.
The relative ease with which Newcastle, who had Les Ferdinand helping out in defence, survived the last dozen minutes after Gillespie's departure, holding on to the lead they had been given by Robbie Elliott's header on the stroke of halftime, was due in part to Arsenal's lack of imagination, but owed more to the resilience Dalglish has brought to the side since he took over from Keegan in January.
Yet sitting at Highbury on Saturday, watching two teams so rich in attacking talent produce such a dull muddle of a match, one became aware of an emotion which, during the Keegan era at Newcastle, would have been unthinkable. It was boredom.
Under Dalglish, Newcastle should win something before long, but take away the idiosyncrasies and they are just another aspiring, fair to middling, top six team. The danger now is that Dalglish will produce a side of battleship grey which is more efficient but rather less engaging.
At Highbury, the players as well as supporters have already adjudged manager Arsene Wenger the best thing to happen to Arsenal since Liam Braety.
It was a pity, therefore, that in the last home match of the season, they were unable to reproduce that balance of qualities old and new that before Saturday held out the realistic prospect of finishing runners up.
A rare lack of defensive discipline led to Newcastle's goal. From Asprilla's corner, Darren Peacock hooked the ball back towards the far post, where Patrick Vieira stood and watched as Elliott ducked in front of him to nod it past David Seaman.
Wenger noted gloomily that his team had lost at home to all of their immediate rivals - Manchester United, Liverpool and now Newcastle. "I am clear on what I want do to," he said. "We know we will have to strengthen the squad." Dalglish, too.
