Champions League race wrapped up after dramatic Aston Villa win ends Chelsea’s season | OneFootball

The race for Champions League qualification is done after Aston Villa beat Sunderland 4-3 in a thrilling Premier League encounter on Sunday.

Villa teased a title challenge that nobody truly believed would be maintained and, in truth, they have suffered a bit of a collapse.

Thankfully for Unai Emery, his side only had to match one of Liverpool or Chelsea’s form, with five places confirmed to be enough to secure Champions League football next season.

Villa might have qualified anyway by winning the Europa League, but Chelsea’s abysmal results under Liam Rosenior mean the Villans’ equally poor form doesn’t matter.

It’s quite the let-off, as was Sunday’s result against Sunderland.

Ollie Watkins’ first-half double gave Villa a 2-1 lead at the break after Christopher Rigg’s equaliser, and when Watkins assisted Morgan Rogers straight after the restart, it appeared the hosts would coast to a comfortable victory and a crucial 10-point gap between themselves and sixth-placed Chelsea.

Jadon Sancho then decided to spice things up, giving the ball away near his own box as Trai Hume converted past Emi Martinez, before losing possession again within 10 seconds of kick-off. The turnover led to Wilson Isidor being played through one-on-one, slotting past the Villa goalkeeper after his slip.

Two Sunderland substitutes looked to have handed the visitors an unlikely point, only for a Villa sub, Tammy Abraham, to score a 93rd-minute winner to end the Champions League race with five games to spare.

Chelsea are done. They have lost five of their last six. It would take a miracle for them to turn their form around and close the seven-point gap between themselves and Liverpool. You would probably fancy one of Brighton & Hove Albion, Bournemouth or Brentford ahead of the Blues.

As an aside to the now-finished top-five race, Chelsea’s league season is over before May.

The funny thing is, theirs and Villa’s respective weekends mean the latter can down tools domestically and turn their full attention to winning the Europa League, which you would have fancied them to do anyway with Emery at the helm.

The Spaniard is, after all, Mr Europa League.

It’s an extraordinary position to be in, especially when you consider the Villans took six games to win and five games to score this season.

Downing tools in the Premier League is something we witnessed from both finalists last term, but for completely different reasons.

Their respective domestic seasons were done and dusted, with more chance of being relegated than even finishing in the top half from March onwards. That was never possible thanks to the bottom three being terrible, unlike this season for Spurs, who are actually going down.

It’s a completely different situation Villa find themselves in, yet it will have the same European implications.

Astoundingly, Villa will face English rivals Nottingham Forest in the last four of the Europa League – a competition Emery is bidding to win for a record fifth time. And on the other half of the draw it’s Braga vs Freiburg. As we say, we fancied Villa anyway.

Winning the Europa League is realistic and would be fantastic, yet the bottom line is that Villa will be playing Champions League football next season.

Do you know who won’t be? Chelsea. Their season is kaput. A job well done, BlueCo.