Liverpool and Chelsea slump to defeats as Champions League hopes fade
A 10th Premier League loss of the campaign for Liverpool.
A fourth straight defeat in 10 days for Chelsea. These are bruising times for two of the biggest-spending powerhouse clubs in English soccer.
Forget about challenging for the Premier League title, at this rate, they are struggling to even qualify for the Champions League. Liverpool's feeble title defense unraveled further on Saturday in a 2-1 loss at Brighton that extended the stuttering defending champion's winless run in the league to three matches. Danny Welbeck scored both for Brighton at Amex Stadium, either side of Milos Kerkez's equaliser for Liverpool in its latest disjointed display under manager Arne Slot.
A few hours later, Chelsea was dispatched by Everton 3-0, completing a miserable week in which the team was also bundled out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain in a chastening 8-2 aggregate loss.
Liverpool is hanging onto fifth spot in the league - a point and a place ahead of Chelsea. The Premier League is highly likely to again have five qualification spots for next season's Champions League, but even that might not be enough for these two underperforming giants.
Liverpool has taken just one point from its last three league games and is a remarkable 21 points behind first-placed Arsenal with seven games left of the campaign. The Reds became the first team since Chelsea in the 2017-18 season to lose 10 matches in a title defense.
“It's not good enough, no matter how many excuses I come up with,” said Slot, whose position is coming under scrutiny less than a year after leading Liverpool to a record-tying 20th English top-flight title.
Among those excuses might be Liverpool's injury problems, which worsened when striker Hugo Ekitike hobbled off in the eighth minute with a dead leg. Slot did say after the match, however, that it wasn't serious. The Dutch coach was already without star winger Mohamed Salah and goalkeeper Alisson Becker, who both got hurt this week, while Alexander Isak — signed for $170 million last summer — has been out since December and hasn't been fully fit all season. Still, few could have expected Liverpool's title defence to be so underwhelming when the club spent a record $570 million in last summer's transfer window to bolster a championship-winning squad.
Watch out, Liverpool and Chelsea, Everton is coming for your place in the top five.
Beto scored twice and Iliman Ndiaye curled a shot into the top corner for the third as Everton outfought Chelsea, which delivered a performance lacking in energy after its recent Champions League exertions.
Chelsea manager Liam Rosenior said it was his team's most disappointing performance since he took charge in January.
Everton was in eighth place — behind Brentford, which drew 0-0 at Leeds, on goal difference — and they were only three points behind Liverpool and two behind Chelsea. It also has a goalkeeper in red-hot form; Jordan Pickford produced another amazing save to tip over a close-range effort by Enzo Fernandez in the first half. Chelsea has won just one of its last six games in the league, and that was at third-placed Aston Villa — another team limping to the finish line this season.
Next-to-last Burnley slipped closer to relegation by squandering the lead and losing at Fulham 3-1. Josh King, Harry Wilson and Raul Jimenez — with a stoppage-time penalty — scored for Fulham after Zian Flemming put Burnley ahead in the 60th. Burnley was nine points from safety with seven games remaining and only three points above last-placed Wolverhampton.
It was Jimenez's first goal since the death of his father last week, and the Mexico striker was reduced to tears after the match.
