The slip of Manchester United makes the first four Premier League battles even tighter

MANCHESTER, England – What a strange day in Manchester. It started with one club, Manchester City, worried about his fate in the Champions League and ended with the other, Manchester United, in a state of anxiety about their prospects, when everyone expected it to be the opposite.

The city’s success in overturning a two-year ban from the UEFA competition at the Court of Arbitration for Sport was unexpected almost everywhere other than the Etihad Stadium boardroom, but the verdict added a belated sense of danger to the game for Champions League qualification through the Premier League.

With City out of the game, fifth place would have been enough, but a peaceful ending for Chelsea, Leicester and United is turning into a desperate fight for two places instead of three. Thanks to a dramatic 2-2 draw at home in Southampton, with visitors equal to six minutes in the halftime in the second half, City’s crosstown rivals made life more difficult for themselves.

“That’s football,” said manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, when asked if United had missed an opportunity to move up to third place. “You have key moments and that was one that went against us. It was the worst time to concede a goal, but it happens in football. You think you have three points in the bag, but we probably don’t deserve them today.”

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Strong defeats for Chelsea and Leicester over the weekend – 3-0 at Sheffield United and 4-1 respectively in Bournemouth – had given Solskjaer’s team a chance to rise to third place with a win at Old Trafford.

But United are now on the back of the City’s decision, with substitute Michael Obafemi’s 96th minute goal nullifying the first half attacks of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial to deny United’s victory and leave them fifth, level on 59 points with Leicester and one behind Chelsea. All three clubs have three games to play, so it will be a dash aimed at the finish line.

United returned to a Champions League spot by constantly punishing the mistakes made by those immediately above them, but their inability to maintain an advantage on Monday gave Chelsea and Leicester the opportunity to turn before Solskjaer’s team played again, at the Crystal Palace on Thursday.

Chelsea will face Norwich already relegated to Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, with Leicester hosting Sheffield United two hours before United meets Palace, so the full cost of points lost against Southampton may have had to win at Selhurst Park simply to keep up. .

But all three clubs have difficult games to play between today and the finish line. Chelsea, who will meet United on Sunday in the FA Cup semifinals (LIVE streaming on ESPN + in the United States), must go to Liverpool and win at Anfield on 22 July to avoid beating the Wolves at Stamford Bridge in their last game four days. after.

Leicester and United, meanwhile, may be on a collision course for a clash between all the winners on the day of the decision. Brendan Rodgers’ team will travel to Tottenham on Sunday, after which United will meet West Ham on 22, before they are the Foxes against the Red Devils on the day of the decisions.

United should probably still be seen in the favorites to finish in the top four. They are undefeated in 18 games in all competitions and have a triple of Martial, Rashford and Mason Greenwood who, with 58 goals, have surpassed the attacking forces of Liverpool, Juventus and Barcelona this season.

They also have Bruno Fernandes in midfield, but the positive of being able to invoke the creativity of Paul Pogba was offset by the negative of his inattention in possession against Southampton, which led to the initial goal of the game of Stuart Armstrong. On the back, United have a unique and error-prone rhythm and Southampton’s pressing game has caused countless problems.

In addition, Solskjaer named the same lineup for the fifth consecutive league game and his players looked tired after seven games in 24 days. The changes could be forced on him for the trip to the Palace after left-backs Luke Shaw and Brandon Williams both knocked on Monday.

“I don’t think fatigue is the case,” said Solskjaer. “It was just one of those occasions when the opposition risked and we didn’t take ours. Today we never got into our rhythm.”

With every other team in the Premier League top 10 having suffered at least a bad result since the restart, it was perhaps inevitable that United would hit a bump on the road at some point. They are lucky because they have time to recover and still control their fate – and they have a potential road to the European club competition by winning the Europa League – but if they get so close to a place in the Champions League and then lose, they will leave a bitter taste.

Especially if one of the reasons they lose is because their Mancunian neighbors took the most unexpected victories off the pitch.