Chelsea remain mathematically alive for Champions League qualification, but the route is narrow and unusual. A draw with Liverpool on May 9 provided the Blues with their first Premier League point in more than two months after a six-game losing run that left them with one point from a possible 21.<\/p>\n
The only plausible route to Europe\u2019s top table relies on the Premier League being awarded a sixth Champions League place via a European Performance Spot. That extra berth would arrive if Aston Villa \u2018double qualify\u2019 by finishing in the top five and winning the Europa League. Unai Emery\u2019s team is favorite against Freiburg on Wednesday. If Villa secure both, the league place would drop to the next English team.<\/p>\n
Bournemouth currently occupy sixth with 55 points from 36 matches. Chelsea sit in 10th on 49 points from 36 games, six points adrift but with a superior goal difference. To overtake Bournemouth the Blues must win their remaining fixtures against Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland and hope Bournemouth lose both of theirs.<\/p>\n
Even that would not be enough. Chelsea also require Brentford to lose to Liverpool, and for Aston Villa to slip behind Liverpool into fourth by losing to Manchester City. From a Chelsea perspective Brighton & Hove Albion must fail to beat Manchester United. In total it is seven Premier League results that must go the Blues\u2019 way, plus the Europa League final \u2014 eight matches in all.<\/p>\n
The table is exceptionally tight: Bournemouth 36 (+4) 55 points; Brighton 37 (+9) 53; Brentford 37 (+3) 52; Sunderland 37 (-7) 51; Chelsea 36 (+6) 49; Newcastle 37 (0) 49; Everton 37 (-2) 49; Fulham 37 (-6) 49.<\/p>\n
Supporters have acknowledged the odds. As one Chelsea fan account noted on X this week: \u201c1% chance, 99% faith.\u201d The club that was briefly considered an outside title contender in November now faces a run of results and permutations that make Champions League qualification extremely unlikely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea need wins, seven rival results and an Aston Villa Europa League win to reach sixth. 1% faith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1162,1615],"class_list":["post-13891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-andoni-iraola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13891","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=13891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}