Chase for Champions League places is hotting up

The battle to be the best of the rest and the crucial chase for the Champions League places is hotting up, or it should be.

The current league table suggests it is between Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United for the two remaining places after City, Arsenal and Aston Villa. Except that Chelsea and Liverpool looked disinterested for parts of their games at the weekend.

The Champions League is the holy grail for the owners, well for their finances anyway. Chelsea managed to meekly fail at home to lowly Burnley even though they took an early lead and had everything in their favour.

‌I was at Nottingham Forest to see Liverpool being borderline awful in their first half, with only Virgil van Dijk and, to a lesser extent, Ibrahima Konate keeping them afloat.

There was a plastic bag on the field at one point and the ball rolled over it several times - it seemed to be having a bigger impact on the game than Mo Salah.

He wasn't the only one; everyone was underperforming and starting with Dominik Szoboszlai at right-back was little less than shooting themselves in the foot. The three points, won with a 97th-minute Alexis Mac Allister strike, were among the luckiest you will see.

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