But I’m sure I will find out soon enough.” “With all due respect to the competition, I’m not sure what it is. “I’ve got to be honest, I don’t even know what the competition is,” he said in an interview with broadcaster BT Sport. Leicester won last season’s FA Cup and just missed out on Champions League qualification, so their manager Brendan Rodgers appeared to turn his nose up at the idea of going into the knockout phase of the new competition. It was the same for Leicester and Marseille, who each ended up in the Conference League after being knocked out of the Europa League group stage. It has seen the unheralded Norwegians of Bodo/Glimt put six past Roma and later knock out Celtic on their way to the quarterfinals, while the Slovenians of Mura claimed a famous win over Tottenham Hotspur as the English giants were knocked out in the group stage.īoth Bodo/Glimt and Mura started the season in the Champions League but defeats in the qualifying rounds saw them effectively relegated. Twenty-three years after the abolition of the Cup Winners’ Cup, the idea behind UEFA’s new third-tier European competition was supposedly to give clubs from smaller countries the chance to play more matches, earn more money and get more exposure. Leicester City take on Jose Mourinho’s Roma and Feyenoord play Marseille in the first legs of their semifinal ties this Thursday, with the winners advancing to the final in Tirana in late May. Manchester City and Liverpool are locked in a two-horse race for the Premier League title - but how high or low could your club finish this season?Ĭlubs have between one and two games left to seal their fate but 10 out of 20 clubs are still challenging for the title, qualification for the Champions League, Europa League or Europa Conference League, or to avoid the drop.ĭata guru Ben Mayhew has calculated each club's range of possible final league positions and found, in addition to the 10 teams fighting for a cause, another seven clubs are battling for a top-half finish.Ĭonsequently, only relegated Norwich and Watford, in addition to Southampton - who have avoided the drop but could only muster an 11th-placed finish at best - are the only teams playing purely for pride during the run-in.PARIS: The subject of some derision when it was introduced at the start of this season, the new Europa Conference League has turned out to be a hit and now has some of the continent’s most famous names in the semifinals eyeing a rare piece of European silverware. Should Brighton claim at least a draw against West Ham, then United's spot in the Europa League is confirmed next season - no matter what their result is at Selhurst Park. A draw for United would be enough in the event of a West Ham victory, as the east Londoners (+11) have a far superior goal difference than Ralf Rangnick's side (+1). West Ham's last Premier League game of the season is away at Brighton, while Manchester United also have an away day this weekend - at Patrick Vieira's Crystal Palace.ĭavid Moyes' Hammers know that they need to beat Brighton to stand any chance of finishing sixth - and hope United drop points at Selhurst Park. United hold a two-point advantage over West Ham with one game remaining - with this battle for Europa League football set to go down to the final day of the season. Manchester United and West Ham are the teams fighting for sixth - the final spot to secure a place in next season's Europa League group stage. FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Brighton's win against Manchester United
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