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This weekend, those four teams face each other in another Saturday afternoon that will shape the structure of the Premier League come the end of the season. Sunderland travel to Bolton in a critical evening kick-off, but first Birmingham visit Craven Cottage to face Fulham at 3pm, knowing that defeat for either side could send them heading back to the Championship by the end of the day. For Alex McLeish's side it's an ignoble fate that looked a long way off just a few months ago.

Impressive - albeit losing - displays at United and Chelsea had given the Blues heart at the turn of the year, while two hard-earned draws with Arsenal and a 4-1 thrashing of post-Carling Cup Spurs handed them five points they must've have expected to claim going into those matches. Had they maintained that form, City could well be safe by now, but instead they've committed the relegation dogfight cardinal sin by failing to beat any of the teams around them since the turn of the year.

January saw a 2-0 defeat at Sunderland, February a 1-1 draw with Derby at home, March a late 2-1 loss at Reading and April a 2-0 reversal in Wigan. Thankfully for McLeish, Fulham are in pretty much the same boat. While they have won one (an impressive 2-0 triumph against Reading in April), Roy Hodgson's side have mostly lost significant relegation six-pointers (against Sunderland a week earlier and Middlesbrough in February) and dropped points in a 2-2 draw with Derby in March.

Evenly matched on paper then, but not so much in the mind. Fulham's Derby draw came at the end of March on the same day Birmingham beat Manchester City 3-1. Fulham had squandered two simple points against the league's whipping boys, while City had weathered sendings-off, penalties and some dubious refereeing decisions to claim a vital win. Argentine hot-shot Mauro Zarate was on-form, while the Cottagers were desperately short of inspiration.

The survival cards looked massively stacked in City's favour, but now it's Fulham who hold all the aces. Both McLeish and Hodgson will know that City's squandering of a strong position and Fulham's miraculous ressurrection from seeming doomed will have a huge effect on the players' mental state, negative for Birmingham, positive for Fulham. The team that can marshall those feelings the most successfully will more than likely be the eventual winners. Both of the game and the relegation scrap.

As if often the case at this time of year, however, those two teams' fates could be decided without either team kicking a ball, because a Bolton win in their 5.15 clash with Sunderland, coupled of course with results elsewhere, could relegate either Fulham or Birmingham and put the Trotters on the brink of safety. It certainly didn't seem that would be possible earlier in the season. A disastrous start to the campaign under the management of Sammy Lee left them adrift by Christmas, and their success in the UEFA Cup didn't help matters once Gary Megson took over.

Even after Sporting Lisbon dumped the Trotters out in the Round of 16 in early March, they still seemed to struggle. A Cristiano Ronaldo-inspired 2-0 loss at Manchester United seemed inevitable, but a defeat at Wigan and stalemate at home to Manchester City left them needing to turn their fortunes around fast. When the half-time whistle at home to Arsenal went they seemed to be doing that, but Megson's men capitulated in the second period and they went on to lose 3-2 before being hammered 4-0 at Aston Villa the following week.

Three games later the small difference between the bottom four has been underlined. Two narrow 1-0 wins against West Ham and Middlesbrough and that priceless point at Tottenham last weekend have taken the Trotters from two off the bottom, to two above the relegation zone. They haven't been commanding results and they certainly haven't been pretty performances, but they have seen Megson return the team to the hard-tackling, stern defending ethos that saw Sam Allardyce help them to some impressive finishes during his reign.

If Megson sticks with this in the final two games of the season he could well help his side to a great escape which seemed all but impossible earlier in the campaign. On the other hand, if these tactics backfire and his side slumps to defeat against Sunderland, the bottom of the table could turn on its head once more and leave the Trotters needed a result against title-chasing Chelsea on the final day. Now, what were we saying about squeaky bum time?

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