Chelsea\u2019s 3-0 defeat to Brighton on Tuesday has widened a gap that, with only 12 points remaining for the Blues, looks increasingly insurmountable. Brighton\u2019s win moved them up to sixth and left Chelsea rooted lower in the table, while Manchester United and Liverpool stand to benefit in the battle for Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n
The standings make the situation clear. Manchester United and Aston Villa sit on 58 points with a possible maximum of 73. Liverpool are on 55 with a possible 70. Brighton have 50 and can reach 62. Chelsea and Brentford are level on 48; Chelsea can reach a maximum of 60 while Brentford can reach 63. Brighton have played one game more than Liverpool and, like Chelsea, can only collect a maximum of 12 additional points.<\/p>\n
Both Manchester United and Liverpool have 15 points remaining to play for. One of those fixtures is against each other on May 3. To finish above Brighton and Brentford and guarantee Champions League qualification for 2026\u201327, Manchester United must secure two more wins and Liverpool must secure three.<\/p>\n
Brentford now pose a greater threat to the Champions League spots than many expected after losing their influential manager last summer. They sit level with Chelsea but retain five matches remaining.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s immediate challenge is to arrest what the club faces as a 114-year low five-game losing slump and to secure any European football for next season. Sixth place currently equates to Europa League qualification and seventh is good enough for the Conference League, which Chelsea won last season. If Manchester City win the FA Cup, an extra Europa League place will be allocated via the final Premier League standings; in that case seventh would be enough for the Europa League and the Conference League spot would drop to whoever finishes eighth.<\/p>\n
Chelsea could also obtain the FA Cup\u2019s Europa League spot by winning the competition. They face Leeds United in the semifinals at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat to Brighton makes Champions League qualification unlikely; United and Liverpool<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,175,179,172],"tags":[1162,1047],"class_list":["post-12647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12647","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=12647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}