Chelsea can complete bumpy ride to Europa, but Man Utd hold keys – Talk Chelsea

Looking at Chelsea’s route into Europa League football is so heavily dependent on what ifs and buts. It also looks a bit messy and still very tough.

Chelsea must just focus on winning their last three games against Nottingham Forest (A), Brighton (A), and finally, Bournemouth (H) to see out the season. A couple of tough away games coming up now, but we must focus on finishing as high as possible now in the league. It might not even be enough of course, especially if Tottenham, Newcastle, and Manchester United have decent ends to the season as well. But on the other side of that, Chelsea could actually still take 5th, which would be the only guaranteed Europa League qualifying spot that doesn’t depend on other circumstances.

Chelsea are currently 6 points behind Tottenham in that 5th spot, making that goal hugely unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

Italy and Germany have claimed the additional Champions League qualifying places, so only the top four in the Premier League will go into next season’s revised competition.

Manchester United could still be absolutely key for Chelsea qualifying for Europa League, in more ways than one.

While Chelsea aren’t, of course, in the FA Cup final, the competition still throws the club a lifeline of some sort. The winners of the FA Cup will claim a place in the Europa League. If the winners finish in the top five of the Premier League – and therefore qualify for the Champions League or Europa League through their league position – the Europa League spot will be passed down to the next-highest ranked English top-flight outfit not competing in Europe.

If Manchester United don’t finish in the top five but win the FA Cup then they qualify for the Europa League, with sixth place claiming the Europa Conference League.

But, if Manchester City win the FA Cup then Europa League qualification will be awarded to team ranked fifth and sixth, while seventh place claims Europa Conference League. So, Chelsea can finish seventh and still secure European football on the basis that Pep Guardiola’s side defeat the Red Devils at Wembley.

Confused? Yep, so am I!

As it stands, Chelsea are 7th on goal difference ahead of Manchester United after they got thrashed 4-0 by Crystal Palace last night. This position if they stayed where they are does not guarantee any kind of European qualification, and will see them not make the Europa League – even 6th place does not guarantee that.

So Chelsea have a lot of work to do and the route still looks very tough and heavily dependent on other circumstances, results, and the FA Cup final. So even after we have played our final league game of the season, we may still not know our fate and all eyes will go to the cup final.

United and Newcastle of course play each other, and they both have pretty tough run ins too. So anything can still happen here.