Chelsea welcome champions Liverpool with top-five hopes on line

Premier League champions Liverpool are in line to receive a guard of honour at Stamford Bridge on Sunday but any pre-match pleasantries will quickly be put to one side with hosts Chelsea desperate to boost their top-five hopes.

Liverpool wrapped up the title with four games to spare last weekend with a 5-1 hammering of Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield while Chelsea eked out a 1-0 win over Everton that kept them in the thick of the battle for Champions League qualification.

The Premier League having an extra spot in next season's Champions League might ordinarily have given the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea a little more leeway, but the reality is five clubs are chasing three places.

By the time Chelsea kick off against Liverpool, depending on other results, Enzo Maresca's side could be in sixth place and under pressure to rain on Liverpool's parade.

With second-placed Arsenal, who have 67 points from 34 games, looking safe for a top-five finish, the scrap for third, fourth and fifth has become the only story in town for the remaining weeks of the top-flight season.

Nottingham Forest, who are in action later on Thursday at home to Brentford when victory would put them third on 63 points from 34 games, have thrown the cat among the pigeons.

Newcastle United (62 points from 34 games) are in a strong position ahead of their Sunday trip to Brighton & Hove Albion while outgoing champions Manchester City (61 from 34) can ill-afford any slip on Friday at home to a Wolverhampton Wanderers side who have won six successive league games.

Seventh-placed Aston Villa's season is in danger of petering out after falling at the quarterfinal stage of the Champions League and in last week's FA Cup semifinals, and they know anything other than a win against Fulham in Saturday's early kickoff could end their top-five hopes.

TITLE CHALLENGE

In the early months of the season, Chelsea gave every impression that they could challenge for the title, even if Maresca continually downplayed their chances.

While a title shot would have been a surprise, despite the club's 1.1 billion pounds outlay in the transfer market since a group led by American Todd Boehly bought the club in 2022, a top-five finish would have been the bare mininum requirement.

Chelsea's spending dwarfs that of Liverpool, and pretty much every other club, over the same period, yet on Sunday they will start 22 points behind Slot's side who have suffered only two league defeats all season.

With the exception of Federico Chiesa, who has barely featured, Liverpool's squad is virtually the same as the one that finished third last season, nine points behind champions Manchester City.

Maresca may have been talking about the Uefa Conference League semifinal against Swedish club Djurgarden when he said this week "you don't win games and titles with money" but it neatly sums up the reality of his first season in charge.

Chelsea might hope that Liverpool, with a record-equalling 20th English title in the bag, may take their foot off the gas at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. But they won't count on it.

While the Conference League could yet allow Maresca to deliver silverware in his first season in charge, defeat by Liverpool, especially with tough remaining fixtures including a trip to Newcastle, could see them miss a seat at Europe's top table for the second successive season.