<p>Chelsea has made a significant move in the English Premier League’s frenetic race to qualify for the Champions League, a competition the club’s hierarchy secretly tried to destroy in its ill-fated attempt to form a European Super League.</p>
<p>A 1-0 win at West Ham, coupled with Liverpool conceding a stoppage-time goal to draw with lowly Newcastle 1-1 at Anfield, saw Chelsea open up a gap to its two main rivals for a top-four finish on Saturday.</p>
<p>With five games remaining in the league, Chelsea occupies the fourth and final Champions League qualification place — three points ahead of West Ham and four clear of sixth-placed Liverpool.</p>
<p>“It was a six-pointer," said Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, whose team’s packed end to the season also includes an FA Cup final against Leicester and a Champions League semifinal against Real Madrid.</p>
<p>A smiling Tuchel congratulated each of his players on the field after the final whistle at the Olympic Stadium, a contrast to the reaction of Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp after a dramatic finish at Anfield when his team’s season-long vulnerability in defense proved costly again.</p>
<p>Joe Willock’s deflected goal in the fifth minute of injury time has left Liverpool a big outsider to finish in the top four of a league it won by 18 points last season.</p>
<p>“I didn’t see that we deserved today playing Champions League next season,” a deflated Klopp said. “We learn, or we don’t play Champion League.”</p>
<p>A failure to reach the Champions League — and all the riches that come with it — will be painful for a club whose American ownership, Fenway Sports Group, was one of the key instigators in the scheme to set up the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/super-league-collapse-explain-8930f465432504a28a8dfc1627ce2941">breakaway Super League</a>.</p>
<p>That would have seen 12 of the continent’s biggest clubs create a 20-team rival to the Champions League with finances dwarfing the current elite competition, and Liverpool’s place locked in courtesy of it being a founder member.</p>
<p>How galling, then, that the Reds could yet end up in next season’s Europa League — or not playing European competition at all.</p>
<p>In Liverpool’s favor is a benign schedule that sees Klopp’s team finish its league campaign with games against Southampton, West Bromwich Albion, Burnley and Crystal Palace — teams placed 13th or lower. Before that, though, is a trip to fierce rival Manchester United next week, a match that will be marked by protests owing to both clubs’ American owners’ attempts to create the Super League.</p>
<p>There were <a href="https://apnews.com/article/england-soccer-sports-europe-0c3666daa3e89ef36f3ad967da3f51b7">fan protests</a> outside both of the teams’ stadiums on Saturday.</p>
<p>Brighton visited Sheffield United in the late game, looking for a win to move 10 points clear of the relegation zone.</p>
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<p>Steve Douglas is at <a href="https://twitter.com/sdouglas80">https://twitter.com/sdouglas80</a></p>
