Everyone who is living on planet football in England will know that in the next 14 days there are four huge semi-finals in European competition, and that two games in the Premier League on Sunday are likely to decide the title as both Chelsea and Manchester United face crucial fixtures at the weekend. But where else in England and Europe should the discerning football fan be looking for the drama, excitement, elation and sheer gut-wrenching fear and desolation that makes this the greatest game on planet Earth…

Depending on both these sides winning at the weekend (Man City at home to Villa, Spurs at home to Bolton) this game will essentially decide who will join Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd in the Champions League next season.

Man City, playing at home and having spent fortunes, will be favourites but this game will have additional ramifications for a Tottenham side that has been forced to miss out on a Champions League place side before when this close simply because of cruel luck. They were scuppered at the final hurdle in 2006 when a devastating food poisoning epidemic wiped out the Spurs squad prior to their last game of the season. Needing just a win, they lost to West Ham, to allow Arsenal to sneak into fourth place. Many suggest that they have only just recovered from that gutting experience (pardon the pun).

To miss again would be the cruellest luck, and one wonders whether, with a more competitive league next season, they will get a better chance than this.

Already relegated, there are likely to be plenty of sour Hull City faces at the KC Stadium when Liverpool put the final crosses and dots on what may be the last game in the Premier League for the Tigers for a long time.

The Hull faithful will look on ruefully as they no doubt watch a Liverpool side cement their place in Europe next year knowing that the financial troubles at their club – they have already spent a fair portion of their relegation parachute money just keeping afloat this season – are likely to make returning to the top flight, in which they have only spent two seasons in their history, little more than a pipe dream.

An incredible clearance off the line in injury time at Selhurst Park for WBA on Monday night, meant that Crystal Palace did not manage to rubber stamp their place in the Championship for next season with a game to go. The cruel nature of the fixture computer means that they now have to face the only other team still not safe on the last game of the season.

For both teams relegation will bring its cruelties. Crystal Palace were riding along in midtable this season when they surprisingly slipped into administration, and were docked the ten points that leaves them just two points above their opponents at Hillsbrough on Sunday.

The debt is such that whatever happens they will have to sell their best players, including their superb Argentinian keeper

Julian Speroni – who many will say has kept them in with a chance of staying up this season.

Sheffield Wednesday, meanwhile, have been consigned to their fate for a while and will welcome their stay of execution. But it is an uncertain future for them, made more intriguing by their chairman Lee Strafford ominously calling this game a ‘pivotal’ moment in Wednesday’s history.

Relegation sounds the Armageddon bell for both these sides.

If Leeds lose away to Charlton at the weekend (and it is entirely possible) then both these sides will be in with a chance of taking the final automatic promotion spot on the last day of the season.

Millwall could be in the box seat, but will be wary of a Swindon side that beat Leeds 3-0 at home just a few weeks ago.

Millwall have been there or thereabouts for a few seasons and look to have the squad to cope in the play-offs if they don’t make the jump at the first time of asking.

However, neither will want to be that close and miss the opportunity to finish their season early with both Charlton and Huddersfield – the other play-off sides – making this the toughest and most intriguing play-off match-up in League One for years.

Eight sides (at the time of publishing) are still in with a chance of promotion via the play-offs, which is remarkable when you consider there are only two games left and the automatic places have already been decided.

Of those eight perhaps the most surprising is Shrewsbury who many thought at the turn of the year, and with the amount of money they have spent, would push on to compete for the title. As it is they find themselves five points adrift of seventh place with just two games to play.

But they play rivals for the play-offs in those final two games and, with many of the eight also playing each other still have a ghost of a chance of sneaking into one of those magic seven places.

It could be tears or jeers at the New Meadow on Saturday.