Eu must be joking with this lot

COMMENT: EUROPA LEAGUE CONTENDERS SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEIR SEASONS

- camondunphy

THE Champions League is the most coveted prize in European football.

And that reason is simple, because it is reserved for either the champions of each country, or in the case of the stronger leagues, the teams who finish in the top four.

It shouldn't be a place for also-rans.

Yet next year it will be.

No team who finishes 15th or 16th should ever be allowed qualify for the Champions League.

When you are a pair of teams who have lost 35 league matches between you, you should be trying to hide with shame.

Yet it is almost certain that one of United or Spurs will be in the Champions League next season, by virtue of a makey-up rule that allows the winners of the Europa League to enter next season's Champions League.

What message does it send out to the teams competing at the top end of the Premier League — Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Chelsea?

Imagine how those players will feel if they miss out and a team 10 or 11 places below them in the table gains entry to the 2025/26 Champions League.

This tournament should be preserved for winners, not for a team who crashes to a 4-3 defeat to Brentford, nor one who has lost more league games — 19 — this season than they have won (11) and drawn (5).

Spurs are a joke. Their manager, Ange Postecoglou, is a controversial figure among their supporters, because of his attack-minded philosophy.

Everyone knows he is on managerial death-row, ready to be sacked if this season ends trophyless.

But even if it doesn't, we have to examine the quality of the trophy that Spurs may win.