Tottenham Hotspur’s first Premier League win of 2026 failed to pull them out of the relegation zone as West Ham United, Nottingham Forest and Leeds United all collected points in midweek. Nottingham Forest demolished Sunderland 5–0 to record three wins from their last four, maintaining a five-point cushion over 18th-placed Spurs. Leeds remain focused on their FA Cup semifinal against Chelsea on Sunday, and Sean Longstaff’s 97th-minute equalizer against Bournemouth midweek kept their survival hopes alive.

Spurs sit on 34 points, West Ham on 36, Nottingham Forest on 39 and Leeds on 40. The final four fixtures carry heavy significance for each club.

Tottenham
– Aston Villa (A) – May 3
– Burnley (H) – May 1
– Chelsea (A) – May 4
– Everton (H) – May 24
Winning against Wolves was an obligation for Tottenham, but the weekend trip to Aston Villa is a far sterner test. A crucial home meeting with Leeds follows and then an away match at Stamford Bridge. Di Zerbi’s side conclude at home to Everton in a fixture described as likely to determine their fate.

West Ham
– Brentford (A) – May 2
– Arsenal (H) – May 10
– Newcastle (H) – May 10
– Leeds (H) – May 11
West Ham will take confidence from an agonizing win against Everton and seven points from their last three. Brentford, winless since February, present a winnable game, before a daunting home match with Arsenal and an away day at Newcastle. The season ends at the London Stadium against Leeds.

Nottingham Forest
Forest travel to Stamford Bridge next weekend, a match sandwiched by a Europa League semifinal tie against Aston Villa. They then host Newcastle before travelling to Old Trafford to face Manchester United in the penultimate weekend. Forest will hope safety is secure by the time Bournemouth visit the City Ground in the final match.

Leeds United
Leeds aim to be FA Cup finalists by the time they host Championship-bound Burnley, a match that offers a valuable opportunity to collect three points and move closer to Premier League survival.

Manchester United failed in its bid to overturn the red card shown to Lisandro Martínez in the Premier League defeat to Leeds United. The club lodged an appeal against the dismissal found on VAR review, but the FA’s regulatory commission has confirmed the appeal was unsuccessful and Martínez will serve the three-match suspension originally imposed.

After the game, Michael Carrick was blunt in his assessment of the decision. “That decision was one of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Carrick fumed after the game. “[Calvert-Lewin] can throw his arms in Licha’s face—and then he’s sent off. Shocking. I don’t even know what it looks like. It’s not a pull, it’s not a tug, it’s not aggressive. He touches [the hair] and he gets sent off. We have got to be careful where the game is going. It is a shocking decision, absolutely shocking.” Carrick later reiterated his view but declined to expand: “It’s obvious how I felt after the game, and I still feel that way now. I don’t want to go into it now. It is what it is. We have to accept it and move on.”

The club secretary’s letter, dated two days after the match, “set out in detail” why United believed the dismissal was wrongful and that the standard punishment would be “clearly excessive.” United included three videos with the appeal: one of the full incident between Calvert-Lewin and Martínez, one showing contact made on Leny Yoro during the same match, and footage of a February hair-pulling incident involving Kenny Tete for which a sending off did not follow.

The presiding commission, made up of former referee Steve Bennett, former Premier League champion Stuart Ripley and ex-defender Francis Benali, found unanimously that there was no “obvious error” by the match officials. The judgement stated: “The pulling of a person’s hair can be interpreted to fall outside the normal constituent elements of a challenge in football and can therefore fall into the category of violent conduct. The commission did not feel that it could be said with any confidence that the force exerted by [Lisandro Martínez] on [Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s] hair/scalp was negligible.” The panel said Martínez “grasped” the hair and Calvert-Lewin’s reaction “suggested that he had felt a certain amount of force exerted upon his hair/scalp.” It concluded “it was not outside the parameters of reasonableness for the Referee to have interpreted the VAR footage in the way that he did and he could not, therefore, be said to have made an obvious error.”

The commission added that although hair pulling is low on the violent conduct scale it “ought not to be tolerated” and “should be discouraged through consistent punishment.” Martínez has served the first match of the ban and will miss the Premier League games with Brentford (April 27) and Liverpool (May 3); he will be eligible to return at Sunderland on May 9. The suspension might have been more disastrous had events unfolded slightly differently.

Gameweek 33 delivered decisive swings at both ends of the table and several standout individual displays. FotMob’s ratings identify nine players who shaped the round across a series of key matches.

Curtis Jones (rating 8.4) was deployed at right back by Arne Slot in the Merseyside derby and responded with a dominant defensive and possession performance. Jones recorded 28 defensive contributions, more than double any other player on the pitch, while also leading the match for touches (118), attempted passes (84) and completed passes (79). He emerged from his duel with Iliman Ndiaye unscathed.

Erling Haaland (8.4) produced the goal that pulled Manchester City back into the title race. The Norway forward played the full game despite heavy attention from Arsenal defenders William Saliba and Gabriel, endured his undershirt being ripped and an attempted headbutt, and finished with a memorable smirk at the camera after the final whistle.

Jaydee Canvot (8.4) has taken on greater responsibility since Marc Guéhi’s mid-season exit and impressed again in Crystal Palace’s draw with West Ham United. Canvot frequently won his confrontations with Jarrod Bowen and showed notable composure on the ball, repeatedly stepping into midfield to drive his team forward.

Leeds United produced three of the week’s top performers. Noah Okafor (8.5), 25 years old, forced an early advantage by assisting Leeds’ opener and then scoring the second inside the opening 20 minutes. Dominic Calvert-Lewin (8.6) sealed the win with a 95th-minute penalty after a game in which he was disruptive both on the ground and in the air and likely had earlier chances to score. James Justin (8.7) opened the scoring with an acrobatic overhead kick and combined attacking impact with a team-leading 17 defensive contributions.

Xavi Simons (8.7) stood out in Tottenham Hotspur’s 2–2 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion, leaving the match with a goal and an assist, celebrating his stunning strike with real emotion before the late equaliser.

Elsewhere the round brought relegation heartbreak for Tottenham Hotspur and confirmation of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ tumble out of the top flight, emphasising the high stakes of Gameweek 33.