Another weekend of mixed results has left this year's J. League championship race as opaque as ever, but after further movement at the bottom of the table, the relegation battle is looking even harder to call.

Consadole Sapporo's official status as dead men walking means there are only two demotion slots left to fill, and no side in the bottom half of the 18-team division is likely to rest easy until the noose has been mathematically avoided. Albirex Niigata and Gamba Osaka currently sit below the line with five games remaining, but with only eight points separating 17th-place Albirex from 11th-place Cerezo Osaka, the final picture has the potential to look radically different.

Gamba were last weekend's big winners, beating Kawasaki Frontale 3-2 to move one point from the safety zone while Albirex and 15th-place Omiya Ardija canceled each other out with a 1-1 draw. A tally of 57 in the goals-against column illustrates precisely what has got 2005 champion Gamba into such a mess this season, but a remarkable league-high 58 scored marks them out as the joker in the pack capable of absolutely anything over the coming weeks.