Chelsea enter the Premier League\u2019s final day with European qualification still possible but narrowed to two routes: the Europa League or the Europa Conference League. As 2024\u201325 Europa Conference League winners and 2025 Club World Cup champions, expectation was higher after another summer of heavy investment. The Blues sit on 52 points and are out of reach of Bournemouth in sixth, meaning the realistic fight is for seventh to 10th.<\/p>\n
Newcastle United, Everton and Fulham occupy 11th, 12th and 13th and sit three points behind Chelsea, but would need a significant swing in goal difference to overtake the Blues. The direct contenders for the two European places are Brighton & Hove Albion, Brentford and Sunderland. Going into the final day two points separate the four sides. Seventh place secures Europa League football, eighth place the Conference League.<\/p>\n
Table position and goal difference going into the last day are: Brighton +9 on 53 points; Chelsea +7 on 52 points; Brentford +3 on 52 points; Sunderland -7 on 51 points.<\/p>\n
Chelsea cannot qualify for the Champions League. To reach the Europa League the Blues must better Brighton\u2019s result. If Brighton beat Manchester United they will finish seventh and take at least Europa League qualification regardless of other outcomes. If Chelsea beat Sunderland they still require Brighton to drop points to move ahead of the Seagulls.<\/p>\n
Brentford can overtake Chelsea only if they overturn the goal difference gap. That would require Brentford to beat Liverpool by a margin at Anfield at least four goals greater than Chelsea\u2019s winning margin. A draw at the Stadium of Light still leaves seventh achievable for Chelsea only if Brentford fail to win and Brighton lose to Manchester United by at least two goals.<\/p>\n
If Brighton take a point while Brentford do not win, Chelsea would finish eighth. A Brentford victory would see them overtake Chelsea and drop the Blues to ninth. If Chelsea lose to Sunderland, their European hopes end, with both Brighton and Sunderland finishing above them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Final-day permutations: Chelsea must better Brighton or rely on Brentford and Sunderland results….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1162,1709],"class_list":["post-13996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-conference-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13996","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=13996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}