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But despite many issues still being up in the air, it's actually the teams who have little still on the line who will play the biggest roles in shaping the look of the final Premier League table. Thanks to their 3-1 defeat at Blackburn on Saturday, Derby are now doomed to finish the6 season with the lowest points tally ever, meaning their match against Reading may not have the bite it might have had. Meanwhile a mediocre 2-0 defeat at Middlesbrough proved Portsmouth have got more than just one eye on the FA Cup final, which will be good news for Fulham, who visit Fratton Park in their final game.

So the short straw has been pulled by Birmingham City who are the only team out of the relegation-threatened trio to be playing a side who still need to be competitive. They welcome to St Andrews a Blackburn Rovers team who are not only on fine form at the moment but also need victory to seal an Intertoto Cup spot. It's certainly a tough fate for Alex McLeish's men, and there will undoubtedly be many grumblings from the St Andrews camp if Fulham relegate them by cruising to victory against an under-strength Portsmouth. But had they played better in recent months, the boot could easily have been on the other foot.

As we wrote in last week's Something for the Weekend, City have capitulated in this latter stage of the season, plunging themselves into trouble from a position of relative safety and seeming low on confidence and ideas as a result. Saturday's insipid performance at Fulham proved as much. They rarely came close to threatening the home goal in a game Roy Hodgson's men bossed almost from start to finish and thoroughly deserved the three points from. After squandering a two goal lead and three points against Liverpool a week ago, City have now won only one game since the start of March (when they thrashed Tottenham 4-1) and sunk right down to second-from-bottom.

For Fulham, the victory was enough to put their fate in their own hands and they will travel to Portsmouth knowing a win will relegate Reading and Birmingham (barring a Royals win and significant overhaul in goal difference) having been on the brink of the drop themselves at half-time in last Saturday's superb 3-2 comeback win at Manchester City. Their return from almost certain doom has undoubtedly been impressive and on Saturday they played with the confidence of a team who have won three of their last four games. But Roy Hodgson's men should feel a pinch of luck as well as pride if they do escape relegation.

A season is made up of more than just a handful of matches in April and May, and despite their fantastic form in these last few weeks, Fulham have been pretty dire for most of it. Between twin victories over Reading at Craven Cottage in November and the Madejski in March, the Cottagers won just two games (against Everton and Villa), and barely managed to scrape ten points together. While Reading and Birmingham have been well off the boil in recent weeks (Steve Coppell's men haven't scored in six games, never mind won), between them they have taken points off the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham and arguably been more consistent than Fulham for long periods of the campaign.

It would seem slightly harsh then to see them drop down into the Championship and Fulham survive, but that is the nature of football. As Leicester City fans found out over the weekend (and Premier League fans will discover on Sunday), fortunes can change several times over the course of just one match never mind a handful of them, and if you're not up to scratch you'll be found out. Reading and Birmingham were comfortably exposed on Saturday and, if Harry Redknapp does send out a weakened team at Fratton Park on Sunday and Fulham survive, the Royals and the Blues will only have themselves to blame.

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