Manchester United and Chelsea both secured 2-0 victories over Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively to finish third and fourth in the English Premier League and secure Champions League football for the 2020-2021 season.
In the meantime, Leicester City who finished 5th will play in the Europa Cup while Wolves who finished 7th must await the outcome of the FA Cup final to know if they will qualify for Europe, this after Tottenham Hotspurs held on for a 1-1 draw away to Crystal Palace to move into sixth place on goal difference.
Ahead of the start of the final set of games today, two Champions League positions were still up for grabs with three teams chasing them.
For Chelsea the equation was very simple, beat Wolves and secure one of the two spots.
But Nuno Espirito Santo’s men were seemingly about to throw a spanner into the works until stoppage time goals at the end of the first half settled things for Frank Lampard’s team at Stamford Bridge.
Mason Mount broke the deadlock from a set piece in the first minute of added time after Chelsea were fortunate to be given the kick in the first place. Mount curled in a beautiful shot into the roof of the net from twenty-two yards to set his team up nicely.
Olivier Giroud made the points safe in the fourth minute of added time when he fired the ball home into an empty net while under pressure, after rounding Patricio in the Wolves goal.
Meanwhile, over at the King Power Stadium, neither team could find a breakthrough in the first 45 minutes as they went in scoreless at the break.
Despite bossing the game, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team failed to trouble Kasper Schmeichel in the Leicester City goal and the boss would have demanded more from his team in the second half.
For Brendan Rodgers it would have been job done after 45 minutes and an opportunity to really go after it in the second stanza.
But it was United who took the decisive advantage when Anthony Martial was brought down by a double challenge from former United defender Johnny Evans and Leicester captain Wes Morgan.
Bruno Fernandes who has taken responsibility from 12 yards since joining the club, calmly rolled the ball into the goal, after sending Schmeichel the wrong way, in the 71st minute.
The goal seemed to be enough to secure all three points for United who were given a gift of a second, when Schmeichel tried to dribble past an alert Jesse Lingard who stole the ball off the keeper and calmly rolled home for his first of the season in the 8th minute of added time.
It was Lingard’s first goal for the club since Solskjaer’s first game in charge, when he scored a brace on that occasion.
It was a remarkable end to the season for United who were 14 points off the pace when the league was stopped in March, due to the global pandemic.
With Champions League football secured, United will now turn their attention to the Europa Cup next month which they last won when Jose Mourinho was in charge in 2017.
Next up for Chelsea will be Arsenal in the FA Cup final at Wembley on Saturday, as they go after their first piece of silverware for the season.
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