All eyes were on Liverpool and Arsenal over the Premier League weekend as the pair ground out hard-fought wins in the title race, but what about the sides beneath them?

The challenge for the Champions League places took some new twists and turns with defeats for Nottingham Forest, Newcastle and Chelsea, as well as wins for Manchester City and Bournemouth.

3rd - Manchester City, 4th - Newcastle, 5th - Bournemouth



Chris McKenna

Obviously the top two is pretty much sorted now and barring a collapse from Liverpool, they’ll finish top with Arsenal second.

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Manchester City aren’t fully back to their best but they’re showing enough glimpses that they can put a run together and it will be a surprise to me if they don’t finish third from this position now.

Fourth place is a lot harder to predict but I believe Nottingham Forest will get enough wins to make a shock return to the Champions League.

In the romantic Hollywood screenplay, we wave Bournemouth, Fulham, Nottingham Forest or even Brighton off to the Champions League, wishing Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva and the Emperor Nuno good luck as they set sail for Calais.

And it would be great fun to see what Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich make of the Legoland-sized Vitality Stadium, the cosy dressing rooms at Craven Cottage and Mull of Kintyre anthem at the City Ground.

But in the land where money talks loudest, football's most vulgar currency usually holds sway.

So when the music stops, if there are five English clubs in the Champions League next season, I would expect them to be Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and - assuming they are not too distracted by the cups - Newcastle.

Only a week or two ago, you'd have backed Newcastle to claim fourth spot - but suddenly they're out of the conversation for most after their 4-0 loss to Manchester City, who should finish the season strongly to claim third, barring a total disaster.

Fourth and fifth spot, then, is a toss-up between Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth, Chelsea and Newcastle

Mark Jones

Were they to exit the Champions League on Wednesday then the rest of this season becomes about building towards the next for Manchester City, and I'd expect to see plenty of their fresher faces such as Omar Marmoush and Nico Gonzalez for the remainder of the campaign
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