A turbulent weekend at the top of the table has intensified the fight for Champions League qualification. This season the usual top-four contest has become a top-five race after English clubs\u2019 European form secured an extra Champions League berth.<\/p>\n
Current league positions are Man Utd 55 points, Aston Villa 55, Liverpool 52 and Chelsea 48. Over the next six weeks those totals and the head-to-head schedule will be decisive.<\/p>\n
There are multiple meetings among the four contenders across the remaining fixtures, meaning none can be discounted. Chelsea will place huge importance on the upcoming home match against United. They also travel to Anfield on May 9. Only four points separate Chelsea and Liverpool at present and neither side is likely to enjoy a perfect run to that meeting, which leaves the door open for the Blues with a victory.<\/p>\n
For Liverpool, May starts away at United and includes the visit from Chelsea and a trip to Aston Villa. The draft notes that “Three victories would likely seal a spot in the Champions League for Arne Slot\u2019s side, but three defeats could easily have the opposite effect.”<\/p>\n
Aston Villa\u2019s immediate run looks comparatively favourable. The club will back itself against Sunderland, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley in the next four matches and aim to build a cushion before a tougher finish. Villa host Liverpool on the penultimate weekend and finish away to Manchester City, a fixture that is hard to predict. The draft adds that, “Given the current state of the title race, it might be a must-win for the Cityzens, but if their hopes of catching Arsenal are already dead by that point, heads may already be on beaches by the time Villa come to town.”<\/p>\n
United, already in a strong position, understand their European aspirations hinge on the next three games. The draft states that victory over Chelsea would have major consequences: “victory over Chelsea would effectively seal a spot in the Champions League, given the gap down to the Blues would be a whopping 10 points.”<\/p>\n
Across April and May there are fixtures listed that include matches against Chelsea, Sunderland, Everton, Brentford, Fulham, Crystal Palace, Brighton, Tottenham, Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Manchester City. Those dates and meetings will determine how the top five look at the end of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top-four fight has become top-five. Four clubs share the chase with key head-to-head fixtures ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,190,175,1083,969],"tags":[299,1047],"class_list":["post-11777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}