Durham: West Ham could finish fourth and end up in Europa
talkSPORT host Adrian Durham has painted a picture whereby West Ham could finish fourth in the Premier League and still only qualify for the Europa League – something that he said would be “devastating” for the club.
West Ham are still in the hunt for a top-four place and an expected spot in next season’s Champions League.
They’re currently three points behind Chelsea with four games left.
However, in a major development this week, both Man City and Chelsea made the final of the Champions League – and if Arsenal win the Europa it could have huge repercussions on the Premier League.
As Durham pointed out on Drive (talkSPORT, Thursday, 4pm), “We can only have five teams in the Champions League. We can’t have six teams in the Champions League.”
Durham went on to say that if Chelsea won the Champions League and finished outside the top four, while Arsenal went on to win the Europa League, both teams would qualify for the top European competition.
That would only leave three spots and would see the team that finished fourth only make the Europa League. Durham said that would be the nightmare scenario for the Hammers.
“That would be devastating for West Ham,” Durham said.
“They’d be gutted, wouldn’t they?” co-host Darren Gough replied.
“They’d be more than gutted,” Durham said.
“So West Ham fans will be supporting Man City?” asked Gough.
“Yes, although it depends what’s going on when the final comes about,” said Durham.
Unlikely to happen but…
Thankfully for West Ham fans, this set of results hinge on Arsenal winning the Europa League.
That’s very unlikely – they’ve been awful this season. And Man City are the favourites to win the Champions League.
However, if we do finish fourth and Arsenal make the final of the Europa, the two finals are going to take on an absolutely massive significance.
It’s unlikely but Durham is right – if it happened it would be absolutely devastating.
And we’d all be Man City fans for the day.
First things first though, we need to do our bit on the pitch before this even becomes an issue.
And we’ll be cheering on Villarreal just that extra bit harder tonight.
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