By beating Chelsea 3-1 at Stamford Bridge on Monday, Nottingham Forest extended their unbeaten run in the Premier League to seven matches.
It moved them six points clear of 18th-placed West Ham, and restored their five-point advantage over Spurs in 17th.
Although not confirmed mathematically, the three points should be enough to seal Forest’s place in the Premier League next season.
After a season marred by three managerial changes at the City Ground, Forest will be indebted to Vitor Pereira if survival is achieved.
Since replacing Sean Dyche in February, the 57-year-old has lost only two of his nine Premier League matches in charge.
Pereira’s side are unbeaten in matches against Manchester City, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Sunderland and Chelsea.
In their past three games, Forest have remarkably scored 12 times and conceded just twice to improve their goal difference from -12 to -2. It could effectively act as an extra point at the end of the season.
Spurs, on the other hand, followed up a first Premier League win of 2026 last week by earning a vital victory against a much-changed Aston Villa side on Sunday night.
After three matchdays in the relegation zone, the win meant Spurs, last season’s Europa League winners, climbed out of the bottom three and leapfrogged West Ham.
Speaking on Monday Night Club, former Manchester City and Newcastle United goalkeeper Shay Given said: “It’s so tight now. It’s between two, realistically. The rest are home and dry. Maybe not mathematically, but they are done and dusted.
“It’s a huge week for Tottenham. Forget about the tactics, forget about the managers, forget about the boardroom. It’s about the result. It’s three points – the lift that will give the lads.
“Imagine them going into training today. A few weeks back, the Spurs stadium has been nearly empty towards the end of games. You could see them in the away end yesterday – the place was rocking.
“It’s just that feeling, the human feeling of ‘we’ve won a game of football. We’re out of the relegation zone. We’ve flipped with West Ham’.”
However, it is not all doom and gloom for the Hammers despite their precarious position.
They have actually improved significantly in the past three months and, since suffering back-to-back defeats in January, have only lost four of their past 14 Premier League matches.
But if any club are aware that it can sometimes be too little, too late, then it is West Ham.
The east Londoners have the unwanted record of accumulating the most points in the final eight games of the season (15) of any side to be relegated from the Premier League.
In more recent times, Newcastle United – the last team to be relegated from the Premier League with 36 points or more – hold the record for the longest unbeaten run at the end of a season (six games) by a team relegated to the Championship.
If Forest, Spurs and West Ham maintain their current run of form, one of the three could end the season with a similarly unwanted place in the Premier League record books.
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