The battle for fourth place and a Champions League place intensified over the weekend as Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool all featured in Premier League action.<\/p>\n
Chelsea maintained their strong form under Liam Rosenior, dispatching Wolverhampton Wanderers 3\u20131 thanks to a hat-trick from Cole Palmer. Liverpool were dramatically downed 2\u20131 by Manchester City despite another rocket free-kick from Dominik Szoboszlai. The three clubs sit fourth, fifth and sixth respectively with 13 games left to play, and the run of fixtures ahead could prove decisive.<\/p>\n
Man Utd (4th, 44 Points) face:
\n– West Ham vs. Man Utd (Feb 10)
\n– Everton vs. Man Utd (Feb. 23)
\n– Man Utd vs. Crystal Palace (Mar. 1)
\n– Newcastle vs. Man Utd (Mar. 4)
\n– Man Utd vs. Aston Villa (Mar. 15)<\/p>\n
Chelsea (5th, 43 Points) face:
\n– Chelsea vs. Leeds United (Feb. 10)
\n– Chelsea vs. Burnley (Feb. 21)
\n– Arsenal vs. Chelsea (Mar. 1)
\n– Aston Villa vs. Chelsea (Mar. 4)
\n– Chelsea vs. Newcastle (Mar. 14)<\/p>\n
Liverpool (6th, 39 Points) face:
\n– Sunderland vs. Liverpool (Feb. 11)
\n– Nottingham Forest vs. Liverpool (Feb. 22)
\n– Liverpool vs. West Ham (Feb. 28)
\n– Wolves vs. Liverpool (Mar. 3)
\n– Liverpool vs. Tottenham (Mar. 15)<\/p>\n
On paper, Liverpool appear to have the most favourable run among the trio, while Chelsea face the toughest stretch by some distance. Four of Arne Slot\u2019s next five fixtures come against teams currently in the bottom half of the table, including Nottingham Forest, West Ham and bottom side Wolverhampton Wanderers. The only fixture that stands out as a genuine test is Sunderland, who have already shown this season that they can compete with the league\u2019s elite.<\/p>\n
Chelsea, by contrast, must travel to league leaders Arsenal and third-placed Aston Villa within days, while also welcoming Newcastle United soon after. Although the Magpies are not at their best, Chelsea have failed to beat them in their last three meetings, losing twice during that run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Next five Premier League fixtures could decide the top-four fight for United, Chelsea and Liverpool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,175,179],"tags":[299,1047,1089],"class_list":["post-6643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","category-manchester-united","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6643","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=6643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}