Leicester City: P36 81pts

With 10 games to go, Leicester, three points clear at the top, are in the box seat but three defeats in their past four matches has offered encouragement to rivals and for what so long looked like a procession is shaping up to be anything but.

Promotion, with its pecuniary spin-offs, feels essential given the bleak financial picture. Leicester are at serious risk of breaching the English Football League’s profit and sustainability rules for the 2023-24 season, and there is concern they may fall foul of the Premier League’s financial rules for their accounts covering the three-year period before relegation last May. Any sanctions are unlikely to come into effect this term but another round of player sales will likely be required; the homegrown midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is their most valuable asset after a fine season.

Jamie Vardy, among the high earners out of contract this summer, has picked a good time to rediscover his form – the 37-year-old has six goals in his past seven matches. Jannik Vestergaard, whose contract also expires in June, has been at the heart of the title push. Enzo Maresca’s possession-hungry side have won more games than any other side in the division but have struggled to kill off teams on occasion. How they could do with getting over the line.

Ipswich Town, P36 78pts

At the start of the season Ipswich insiders quietly hoped they would finish in the top half but the club could begin the next one in the top flight, a stage they have not graced since 2002. Regardless of how stylishly Kieran McKenna’s side won promotion last season – they scored 101 goals and racked up 98 points as runners-up – it is remarkable they have lost only four league matches, and two of those were against the Leeds side breathing down their necks.

Ipswich have been wowed by McKenna since the former Manchester United coach took the reins with the club mid-table in League One less than two and a half years ago and the 37-year-old has instilled a tigerish attitude in his squad; they have scored eight goals in the 89th minute or later, including Leif Davis’s winner against Bristol City in midweek, which secured a sixth straight league win. “When we see 90 minutes [on the clock], and added time, we always think we can get another goal,” Ipswich’s Chelsea loanee, Omari Hutchinson, said recently.

Davis – who has a league-high 14 assists – has been outstanding at left-back, Wes Burns electric on the right and the captain Sam Morsy selfless in midfield. The February deadline-day loan signing of Kieffer Moore, whom Mick McCarthy first brought to the club for £10,000 in 2017, has proved inspired, the striker scoring five goals in five weeks. Ipswich, acquired by the American investment fund Gamechanger 20 Ltd fronted by a Los Angeles-based businessman in 2021, could be about to hit the jackpot – and way ahead of schedule.

Leeds United, P36 76pts

It probably did not feel like it amid the clouds of uncertainty but on the eve of the season, fresh from a takeover and with a new manager in Daniel Farke, Leeds were dragging pieces into place to give themselves a chance of returning to the Premier League at the first attempt. Wilfried Gnonto did not get his wish after handing in a transfer request and seven months on he is at the heart of Leeds’s promotion push while players such as Tyler Adams, Jack Harrison and Luis Sinisterra are distant memories.

In Crysencio Summerville and Archie Gray, Leeds boast two outstanding candidates to take home the EFL’s player and young player of the season awards next month. The emergence of Gray, who turns 18 next week and is the great nephew of the legendary Leeds winger Eddie Gray, is one of the stories of the season. Georginio Rutter failed to score after arriving for £36m from Hoffenheim last season but has delivered this campaign.

Leicester’s strength in depth has been lauded but, slowly, Leeds have assembled a squad that may rival theirs for quality. In January, the full-back Connor Roberts, promoted with the champions Burnley last season, became the third Wales international to join this season and the fourth in the squad. One of those, Ethan Ampadu, the captain in recent months, has missed two minutes of the campaign. “It’s not about passports,” Farke said, “it’s all about character.”

Southampton, P35 70pts

When Southampton kicked off the season with a late 2-1 victory over Sheffield Wednesday on a Friday evening at Hillsborough, it was a sign of things to come. It has been a rollercoaster ride for Russell Martin’s Saints, who lost four games on the spin in September by an aggregate score of 12-2 before embarking on an extraordinary, record-breaking 25-game unbeaten run.

They have since lost three of their past five league games and needed a 96th-minute winner to overcome Birmingham in a topsy-turvy 4-3 win last weekend, when Adam Armstrong got their first goal. Only Sammie Szmodics of Blackburn has scored more than Armstrong, whose prolific form for Blackburn earned him a move to Southampton in 2021, in the division this season.

Will Smallbone has enjoyed a breakthrough year in midfield after spending last term on loan in the division with Stoke and Kyle Walker-Peters and Che Adams have exhibited their class. “I know a lot of players in this league still and they talk to me after games and say: ‘Kyle Walker-Peters: wow,’’ the former Norwich defender Martin said recently. “He has been a huge player for us.”

Saints, who have a game in hand on their rivals, face a congested schedule after Wednesday’s home game against Preston was postponed owing to a fire adjacent to St Mary’s and if they are to wrestle hold of a top-two berth then they will have to do it the hard way. They still have to visit Leicester, Ipswich and Leeds, the last of those on a potentially season-defining final day.