Nottingham Forest and Chelsea both know they can guarantee European football next season with a victory in their season finale clash in the Midlands on Sunday.
Any other result and it gets dicey.
Fifth-place Chelsea (19-9-9, 66 points) and seventh-place Forest (19-10-8, 65 points) are two of four teams who enter the day separated by only one point.
But fourth-place Newcastle hosts Everton and sixth-place Aston Villa visits Manchester United. Newcastle and Aston Villa are both favored by oddsmakers.
As many as eight English clubs could reach Europe if Chelsea wins their UEFA Conference League final against Real Betis next Wednesday. But only the top six are guaranteed, with only the top five securing a UEFA Champions League place.
Despite those stakes, Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca insisted the atmosphere around training has been routine.
“When you join Chelsea, you feel the pressure from day one,” he said. “You don’t need to play this kind of game to feel more pressure or less pressure. It’s a club where you need to win games and we have won many this season, but we need one more and it’s the most important one.”
Chelsea lost its previous European six-pointer at Newcastle 2-0 two weeks ago before rebounding with a 1-0 win at Manchester United on Marc Cucurella’s 71st-minute winner.
Forest have also managed considerable stretch-run turbulence.
Numerous reports indicate Nuno Espirito Santo could soon be fired by owner Evangelos Marinankis after the two had a sideline altercation following a 2-2 home draw to Leicester City on May 11.
A postgame club statement said the altercation was about Espirito Santo’s decision to allow Taiwo Awoniyi to try to play through an abdominal injury that eventually forced him out at 83 minutes.
Forest rebounded with a 2-1 win at West Ham on goals from Morgan Gibbs-White and Nikola Milenkovic. And now Espirito Santo insists Sunday’s finale will be played in tribute to Awoniyi, who only has one goal this campaign but scored 16 across the two previous seasons to help cement Forest’s Premier League standing.
“We are going to be playing for T again. He is not going to be with us. It was a big issue that happened to him and it is in our minds,” Espirito Santo said. “We want to see him totally healthy and joining in the group, so it is again going to be a game for T. For T, for us, for the fans, for the city, for everybody. But we just play the game.”
–Field Level Media
