Liverpool, West Ham still battling for top-four spots

Second-placed Manchester United has already secured a top-four finish but Leicester City, Chelsea, West Ham United and Liverpool are still in the mix.

With Manchester City already crowned Premier League champion and the three relegation places also decided, all eyes are now on the battle for the Champions League spots as the season enters the home stretch.

Second-placed Manchester United has already secured a top-four finish but Leicester City, Chelsea, West Ham United and Liverpool are still in the mix.

As Leicester and Chelsea, third and fourth respectively, shift their focus to Saturday's FA Cup final, they will keep one eye on the league fixtures with West Ham and Liverpool breathing down their necks with games in hand.

 

Liverpool is seven points behind Chelsea with two games in hand, including Thursday's trip to Old Trafford, but Jurgen Klopp knows his 2019 European champion's continued participation in Europe's elite club competition is no longer in its hands.

"We don't blame anyone but ourselves," the Liverpool manager said. "Now we need help from other teams (to qualify for the Champions League), but it's the best we could get and we will deal with that."

On Sunday, Liverpool is up against a side with nothing to play for in relegated West Bromwich Albion, a team Klopp has drawn against five times in eight matches. The German has beaten West Brom boss Sam Allardyce only once in the league.

 

West Ham has been the dark horses this season under David Moyes and can get within three points of Thomas Tuchel's resurgent Chelsea, which faces Manchester City in this season's Champions League final, if it wins at Brighton & Hove Albion.

Moyes, who took over a club hovering above the relegation zone last season, is aiming to guide the London side to the Champions League for the first time in its history.

 

Seventh-placed Tottenham Hotspur, eight points behind Chelsea, still has a mathematical chance of finishing in the top four but its odds are slim as it welcomes Wolverhampton Wanderers which has beaten it on its last two visits.

Ninth-placed Everton also has an outside chance of making the top four with four games left and it welcomes bottom side Sheffield United, which has won only one away game all season.