Chelsea would have been watching on with great interest last night as Crystal Palace did them a big favour by thrashing Manchester United 4-0 in the Premier League.
This has now put The Blues in a good position to be able to qualify for The Europa League this season, an achievement that could well keep manager Mauricio Pochettino in his job as head coach at Stamford Bridge.
Sources: Chelsea’s list of Thiago Silva replacements revealed! 👀
The Premier League table now looks a bit better for Chelsea, who are above United in 7th place on goal difference after last night’s result.
Football London report Italy and Germany have claimed the additional Champions League qualifying places, so only the top four in the Premier League will go into next season’s competition. Aston Villa are just points away from securing UCL.
Fifth place in the Premier League will qualify for next season’s Europa League.
Chelsea are currently 6 points behind Tottenham meaning fifth place remains possible. This way would have to rely on other teams above them including Spurs, dropping points. It seems like a tough but not yet impossible task, and the dream stays alive.
The FA Cup is an interesting one though. The winners of the Cup will claim a place in the Europa League. If the winners finish in the top five of the Premier League qualifying for one of the European competitions, the Europa League spot will be passed down to the next-highest placed team in the league who are not competing in Europe.
If Manchester United don’t finish in the top five but win the FA Cup then they qualify for the Europa League, then the 6th place team would make the Europa Conference League.
If Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City win the FA Cup though, the Europa League qualification will be awarded to teams who come in fifth and sixth place in the leagues, and then seventh place will get you Europa Conference League football next season.
In that scenario, Chelsea can finish seventh and still secure European football next season.
Confused? Yep, so am I!
As it stands, Chelsea are 7th on goal difference ahead of Manchester United after they got thrashed 4-0 by Crystal Palace last night. This position if they stayed where they are does not guarantee any kind of European qualification, and will see them not make the Europa League – even 6th place does not guarantee that.
So Chelsea have a lot of work to do and the route still looks very tough and heavily dependent on other circumstances, results, and the FA Cup final. So even after we have played our final league game of the season, we may still not know our fate and all eyes will go to the cup final.
United and Newcastle of course play each other, and they both have pretty tough run ins too. So anything can still happen here.
Chelsea must just focus on winning their last three games against Nottingham Forest (A), Brighton (A), and finally, Bournemouth (H) to see out the season. A couple of tough away games coming up now, but we must focus on finishing as high as possible now in the league. It might not even be enough of course, especially if Tottenham, Newcastle, and Manchester United have decent ends to the season as well.