Seven point lead at the top - tight at the bottom

For much of the season I've been pretty happy with my prediction that Chelsea would win the league and that Manchester City would finish in second place. I based this on the fact that I consider Chelsea to be far and away the best team and City to be considerably better than the rest.

One out of two isn't bad. I really can't see Chelsea slipping up now. Their win against Stoke has taken them to 70 points but it is no longer City in the position just below them. Arsenal, our visitors this weekend, are now there, one point above Manchester United who themselves are now one point above City.

City have won four of their last seven games. I'm just trying to imagine the consequences of us winning four of our remaining seven games. I think it really would be party time in the town, but for City, those four wins have come at a time when they have lost the other three, at Liverpool, the Turf and now at Crystal Palace.

They may have been a bit unfortunate at Palace on Monday night but it's not the place to go right now if you are chasing points. It's been a remarkable turnaround since Alan Pardew took over and they've just won four of their last five games and no longer needing points to stay up.

When Pardew arrived they were next to bottom of the league, above only Leicester and behind us on goal difference. In the time he's been at Selhurst Park, only Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea have won more than the 22 points they've picked up in 11 games.

Last season Tony Pulis won the manager of the year for rescuing Palace, and what's going on there this time is equally as impressive. Some of it was simple to achieve. All you had to do was untie some of the Neil Warnock mess, in particular getting Glenn Murray back from a loan at Reading and getting him into the team. He's scored in three of their last four wins.

Palace are well out of relegation danger now but who is in there. I'd certainly rule West Brom out of it but place all those six clubs beneath them as being under threat.

It all tightened up over the weekend with both QPR and Leicester winning. QPR's win at West Brom was astonishing whereas Leicester's home win against West Ham was perhaps expected, the law of averages suggests a team must win at home sometime. Their last win was on 10th January and this ended a run of just two points from the last eight games.

Sunderland too won at home for only the third time. It came in the Tyne-Wear derby via a spectacular goal from Jermain Defoe. That, and Wayne Rooney's for Manchester United, might well have been given more of a mention but for Stoke's Charlie Adam scoring from 66 yards.

I don't know which way it's going to go but I know we'll all be sat there on Saturday afternoon hoping for some good news as four of the other five play before we kick off against Arsenal, the league's current form team, no doubt about that.

It's another sell out on the Turf. The weather forecast is good which is a bit unfortunate. I was hoping for a bit of snow and ice with howling gales. I can't imagine Arsenal would have fancied that.

We're next to bottom again after QPR's 3-3 draw at Villa last night. I was a bit undecided how I wanted that game to go but I reckon a draw is as good as anything we could have wished for.

All the results and stats are below along with the Premier League leading goalscorers, each club's red and yellow card count and this weekend's fixtures.