Premier League Projection 4/4 - Manchester United by a nose

The results of this past weekend will have a huge impact on the projected Premier League table.  Here is my revised projection:

		Overall
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA		GD	Pts
1	Manchester United	38	23	12	3	83	40		43	81
2	Arsenal	38	24	9	5	76	38		38	81
3	Chelsea	38	23	7	8	69	31		38	76
4	Manchester City	38	20	11	7	61	33		28	71
5	Tottenham Hotspur	38	17	11	10	51	43		8	62
6	Liverpool	38	16	7	15	50	46		4	55
7	Bolton Wanderers	38	12	14	12	53	53		0	50
8	Everton	38	11	16	11	51	52		-1	49
9	Sunderland	38	11	15	12	41	49		-8	48
10	Newcastle United	38	12	11	15	58	58		0	47
11	Aston Villa	38	12	10	16	49	63		-14	46
12	Fulham	38	9	18	11	43	41		2	45
13	Stoke City	38	13	6	19	44	48		-4	45
14	Blackburn Rovers	38	10	11	17	48	62		-14	41
15	West Bromwich Albion	38	10	10	18	53	70		-17	40
16	Wolverhampton Wanderers	38	11	7	20	45	64		-19	40
17	Birmingham City	38	8	15	15	36	54		-18	39
18	West Ham United	38	8	14	16	48	66		-18	38
19	Blackpool	38	9	10	19	54	77		-23	37
20	Wigan Athletic	38	6	16	16	35	62		-27	34

I am now projecting that Man United will hang on to win the title by a thread over Arsenal.  The season will hinge on the showdown between these two teams on May 1st at the Emirates.  In all of my previous projections I expected that Arsenal would win this match based on United's poor road performance and Arsenal's strong home performance.  However, I'm now predicting a draw between these two.  That additional point for United combined with the 4 points Arsenal loses (2 for the United match and 2 for the draw with Blackburn this weekend) brings both teams to 81 points overall.  The first tiebreaker is goal differential and I project United to finish 5 goals better that Arsenal for the season.  Sit tight folks, it's gonna be pretty tense all the way to the finish!

At the other end of the table I have Birmingham pulling clear of relegation by virtue of their victory over Bolton.  West Ham's loss to United, although predicted, was bad enough to hurt their projected performance in home matches so they lose two points and drop back to the danger zone.