[Source: Reuters]

The fight to finish in the Premier League’s top five and qualify for the Champions League intensified on Sunday but Arsenal can breathe easy on the final day after all-but securing runners-up spot with a 1-0 win over Newcastle United this morning.

Declan Rice’s superb 55th-minute strike sealed the points for Arsenal as they avenged three previous losses to Eddie Howe’s Newcastle this season despite a poor first half.

That lifted Arsenal to 71 points, 12 behind runaway champions Liverpool, but crucially mathematically out of reach of all the sides below them barring Manchester City.

Newcastle remained third position but only one point separates them and seventh-placed Nottingham Forest who kept alive their top-five hopes by beating West Ham United 2-1 away.

Forest (65 points) host fourth-placed Chelsea (66) in their final game next weekend while Newcastle (66) welcome Everton.

Aston Villa (66) are currently fifth and face Manchester United at Old Trafford next Sunday.

Sixth-placed Manchester City, who will end the season trophy-less after losing in Saturday’s FA Cup final to Crystal Palace, have 65 points but have two games left to play; Bournemouth at home on Tuesday and Fulham away on Sunday.

“It’s going to go to the end and who knows what twists and turns there will be, we need one big effort in the last game,” Newcastle manager Howe said. “We need to be calm.”

Everton waved goodbye to Goodison Park — their home for 133 years and 2,791 games — with a 2-0 victory over Southampton secured by a double from Iliman Ndiaye.

“This team will be remembered in history as the one who played the last game,” Everton manager David Moyes said on an emotional afternoon on Merseyside in which a host of former players including Neville Southall, Wayne Rooney and Duncan Ferguson joined in the farewell celebrations.

Fulham kept alive their slim hopes of creeping into a European qualifying spot by securing a 3-2 win at eighth-placed Brentford.

In a battle for pride at the bottom between two relegated teams, Jamie Vardy scored his 200th goal for Leicester City in his last home appearance for Leicester City in a 2-0 defeat of Ipswich Town to move above them into 18th place.

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