By Martyn Herman
LONDON (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 on Sunday.
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.
500TH APPEARANCE
Vardy, who was making his 500th appearance for the club he fired to a fairytale Premier League title in 2016, announced last month that he would be leaving.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you. For taking myself and family in as one of your own. Hopefully I’ve repaid you for that,” an emotional Vardy told fans on pitch.
Arsenal knew a win over Newcastle would secure a return to the Champions league and almost certainly mean a third successive runners-up finish in the Premier League.
They were indebted to keeper David Raya in the first half as he made a string of saves, but Rice’s sublime strike 10 minutes after the restart lifted the mood of the home fans whose dreams of silverware this season faded away.
“I had a dream and it was to deliver a big trophy this season to our people,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said.
“I think we deserve it from the journey we have been through in the last three, four years, but we haven’t achieved that. Now we need to make some steps, some action and come back here fresh on day one next season ready to go.”
Nottingham Forest have already guaranteed a return to European competition for the first time in 30 years but their hopes of claiming a top-five spot and a place in the Champions League have faded in the run-in.
They will head into Sunday’s climax still with hope after a deserved win at West Ham.
Morgan Gibbs-White gave them an early lead after a mistake by home keeper Alphonse Areola and Nikola Milenkovic’s header doubled their lead after the break, although Forest had to endure a six-minute VAR check before they could celebrate.
Jarrod Bowen’s replay meant it was an anxious finale but Forest held on through 17 minutes of stoppage time as the game ended in a series of ugly scuffles between the players.
“We knew we had to win this game. We left it a bit nervy for ourselves towards the end,” Gibbs-White said.
“It’s a do or die (against Chelsea), one last push and we have to give it everything.”
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
