Manchester United, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Chelsea keep fluffing their lines. What’s going on?
While Arsenal and Manchester City prepared to face one another in the League Cup final, they won’t have been unduly worried about the teams behind them closing the gap in the Premier League.
The Gunners are heading for a fourteenth league title. Man City are their only challengers but will be at least six points behind even if they win their game in hand on the leaders.
As the season has rolled on, the goal for the chasing pack has evolved. ThePremier League title is beyond them soManchester United,Aston Villa,Liverpool andChelsea have all targeted the top four, soon to be five, to secure a place in theChampions League.
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Qualifying for European club football’s premier competition is essential to these clubs. Villa need the financial boost and crave the elevated status. The others simply believe they belong.
It’s curious, then, that all four seem to be doing everything in their power to fail, tripping over themselves and each other on an almost weekly basis, allowing gaps to close hither and thither, leaving the back door open for Brentford and Everton sneaking up from the shadows.
The likelihood is that three of these four teams will stumble into next season’s Champions League but three of them dropped points in the league fixtures that coincided with League Cup weekend and it keeps on happening.
Outside the top two, the Premier League’s leading contenders for Champions League places are stepping on rakes, their own rakes, rakes they’ve placed on the floor themselves and taken note to avoid.
In the end, League Cup final weekend turned out perfectly for the least in-form team of them all. After seeing United, Liverpool and Chelsea draw, lose and lose, Villa made hay with a win against West Ham United.
The Champions League is calling but nobody wants to pick up the phone
Before beating West Ham, Villa had progressed to the quarter-finals of the Europa League but were on a run of three consecutive Premier League defeats, a sequence seldom seen under manager Unai Emery.
Their buffers had withered away. They were closer to fifth and indeed sixth than they had been for months. United had caught up, beaten them and overtaken them to go third.
Suddenly, Villa were going into the international break just a point behind United and with those comfy old cushions partially restored. United have 55 points, Villa 54, Liverpool 49 and Chelsea 48. Brentford and Everton are only two points farther back.
All four teams – all six, in fact – have 21 points left to go after, yet there will be more than a few supporters of the teams currently between third and sixth who’ll predict in all earnestness that there will be many more fumbled fixtures between now and the end of the season.
These sides are not calamitous or inept. Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley are calamitous and inept. This is more about stakes and pressure and claustrophobic expectations.
The real surprise from a neutral perspective is that none of United, Villa, Liverpool and Chelsea have been able to capitalise on the inability of the other three to handle their business.
Manchester United and Chelsea tried to change the picture
Each member of the Champions League hopeful quartet as it would have been defined before they welcomed Brentford and Everton to the party has been flapping in their own particular way.
United have been trying and failing to blag it for years and the appointment of Ruben Amorim as head coach proved to be a spectacular misstep, but the consequences in the short-term weren’t as unkind as they might have been.
The Red Devils pulled the trigger and it’s worked beautifully. Not having a crap manager is apparently enough to make the difference and Michael Carrick’s blend of basics and simplicity has unlocked some good players just enough to turn the season in United’s favour. Thankfully for the chasing teams, United still have a clanger in them.
Chelsea’s managerial change was made in different circumstances, was handled differently, and has had a different outcome. It feels like a long time ago that Enzo Maresca’s tenure imploded but the material impact on the Blues’ results is barely detectable.
Under Liam Rosenior, Chelsea were unbeaten in six Premier League matches from the middle of January and looked to be eking something out of another chaotic season. After losing to Arsenal, they pulled Vila’s offside line apart but then lost to Newcastle United and Everton without scoring.
Where Carrick appears to have fixed some fundamentals, possibly as a function of understanding his own limitations in the context of his club, Rosenior seems hell-bent on distracting Chelsea and himself with bullshit borrowed from men who think making every sentence a paragraph is a personality.
Injuries have taken a toll
Liverpool and Villa can’t point to managerial upheaval. There are big questions to be asked of Arne Slot despite winning the Premier League title last season. One of those questions – not one I like to countenance in most cases but one that hangs over Anfield – is whether Slot’s title-winning impact was neutral, modest or non-existent.
Villa’s season of insane ups and downs is proof of Emery’s fondness for sticking to his guns longer than some supporters are comfortable with. The fact that both of Villa’s goals for the season are still in play, a trophy and a Champions League place both still possible, is perhaps evidence that it works.
Injuries knocked Villa for six when they were on top form. Among various other weaknesses, losing first-choice midfield pair Boubacar Kamara and Youri Tielemans at the same time was a major blow. Captain John McGinn was in the treatment room too, as Jadon Sancho is now, and Villa’s momentum stalled.
Emery tried to play through those injuries without making tactical concessions for them. He might yet be proved right but Villa have lost what was a significant points advantage.
United, basically, are fine. They’re a little short on their historic ruthlessness and cut-throat bastardry but they’ll be a long time coming back. Their progress under Carrick feels like a temporary uplift from straightforward emergency fixes but if the Champions League is the aim they are, basically, fine.
Liverpool’s season has been played under difficult circumstances, the extent of which we can’t and shouldn’t ever know. Slot’s abilities are under scrutiny along with the naked boldness with which the Reds attacked the summer transfer window, but injuries have been a problem for them too.
Losing Conor Bradley, Jeremie Frimpong, Florian Wirtz and now Mohamed Salah at various points in 2025/26 has been unhelpful and the confluence of negatives really took the edge off Liverpool’s title defence.
Chelsea’s current injury list alone includes Levi Colwill, Trevoh Chalobah, Filip Jörgensen, Jamie Gittens and Reece James, whose World Cup hopes have been threatened by yet another injury. Quality issues in the goalkeeping department have been expensive all season.
The smart money is on three of these four teams making the grade nonetheless. Some of their supporters are expectant, others merely hoping, but their teams have developed an array of ways to remove confidence from the equation.
Some of these clubs have higher hopes than Champions League qualification but that’s now the aim for them all. It seems strange to say it now, with problems mounting and opportunities regularly left untaken, but most of their supporters will end the season happy.
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