Race for Champions League descends into madness - The Mail & Guardian

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Predicting who will qualify for Europe next season is now shamefully a fool’s errand, writes FelthamLuke.

Yet for a statistic that seems so seismic on paper, nothing could feel so insignificant in reality. Such is’s curse, that even the results he delivers seem to come riddled with asterisks. Instead of cheering his achievement, the murmurs in its aftermath have instead centred around the drops of fortune that fell his way and the unsustainability of his methods.

Part of the reason Solskjær was rewarded this week was that inspiration at Chelsea is just as scarce; it’s easier to counter when the ideas being thrown at you are so bad. Frank Lampard keeps screening the same tired play. A first act of ball possession, followed by bouts of flawed build-up, all ending in a finale of missed opportunities. It’s time to alter course if he’s to remain in one of those Champions League spots.

Such is the slimness of the squad that all it took was the absence of Tammy Abraham to remove any semblance of attacking intent. Lampard will one day have time for his youth project but now is the moment for no-nonsense experience to be given time on the pitch. José Mourinho So far they’re bringing in the results: only runaway Liverpool have more points since the Special One returned to London. But this is not how he wants things done. In Sunday’s Aston Villa game it took a heinously misjudged ball to claim the last-minute win, a moment that won’t always arrive in the future.

 

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