The race for Champions League qualification got even tighter in the Premier League after Chelsea beat recently crowned champion Liverpool and Newcastle dropped points at Brighton.
With a record-extending 16th defeat of the campaign, Manchester United could hardly be further from it all.
Liverpool’s players were afforded a guard of honor by Chelsea as they came onto the field at Stamford Bridge for their first match as champions. They didn’t really play like it, with Chelsea running out a 3-1 winner thanks to a third-minute goal by Enzo Fernandez, an own-goal by Jarell Quansah in the 56th and a stoppage-time penalty by Cole Palmer.
Virgil van Dijk’s header made it 2-1 at the time but Liverpool was off the pace for much of the game.
The win lifted fifth-placed Chelsea into a tie for 63 points with fourth-placed Newcastle, which needed an 89th-minute penalty by Alexander Isak to salvage a 1-1 draw at Brighton.
With Manchester City a point higher in third place and both Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa three points back in sixth and seventh, respectively, the fight to finish in the top five — and therefore qualify for next season’s Champions League — looks like going to the wire. Forest has a game in hand, at Crystal Palace on Monday.
The Premier League appears to hold little importance to Man United anymore this season, with a 4-3 loss at Brentford leaving the team languishing in 15th place on 39 points and already certain of recording its worst-ever total in the Premier League as well as its lowest finish.
United’s focus is fully on winning the Europa League and qualifying for the Champions League by that route.
The wild, end-to-end game against Brentford was played between matches against Athletic Bilbao in the Europa League semifinals — United leads 3-0 after the first leg — and manager Ruben Amorim fielded the club’s youngest ever Premier League lineup according to average age, highlighting how Europe is clearly the priority for the remainder of this season.
Isak saves Newcastle
A first-half goal by Brighton winger Yankuba Minteh — a former Newcastle player — looked like seeing off his old club, only for Isak to convert a penalty after Yasin Ayari’s outstretched arm in a defensive wall block against Fabian Schar’s free kick.
Newcastle had previously been awarded two penalties, only for both of them to be overturned after video reviews.
Isak moved onto 23 league goals for the season, putting him No. 2 on the list behind Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (28). It is the most by any Newcastle player in a Premier League season since Alan Shearer in 2001-02.
Tottenham draws but its focus is elsewhere
Like Man United, Tottenham has reached the Europa League semifinals and manager Ange Postecoglou left out a slew of key players for the 1-1 draw with West Ham in a London derby between two struggling teams.
Tottenham beat Bodø/Glimt 3-1 in the first leg on Thursday and faces a tough trip to northern Norway for the return game next week.
Postecoglou made eight changes and went with a mostly second-string lineup against West Ham, yet still saw Wilson Odobert open the scoring in the 15th with his first league goal for Spurs. Jarrod Bowen equalized in the 27th.
“I’m proud of the players’ efforts,” Postecoglou said. “It’s not easy making so many changes and it’s going to affect the fluency and even the rhythm of the team.”
James Maddison didn’t play for Tottenham, with Postecoglou saying the playmaker’s knee injury — sustained against Bodø/Glimt — “doesn’t look great.”
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Steve Douglas, The Associated Press
