AS the season draws to a close, most of the talk is about two things: who is going to win the league and who is going down? writes Mick Jones

What is interesting outside of these two areas are two things. One is who is going to qualify for Europe and the other is who has got nothing to play for.

Manchester City win the latter award. They are surely safe from relegation and cannot realistically get into Europe.

All that is left for them to do is entertain us with their increasingly bad defending.

Just two more defensive howlers and they have got enough to make a Danny Baker Xmas video.

As for the European places, it is very tight. You could go down as far as Southampton in 11th place to see who might make it.

It makes it an interesting chase all the way to the end of the season for their fans, especially for clubs like Middlesbrough and Charlton who never get to take a trip abroad without a holiday rep in sight.

Of course, the big one is the Champions League. For a long time now, its name has become meaningless as the top four teams in the league get to enter.

That does not make it any less prestigious though, especially with the money on offer. You can question the ethics but you cannot question how much harder it is to win these days. Ask Arsenal.

You would not really look beyond the present top four to make up the Champions League qualifiers: Arsenal, Manchester United, Newcastle and Chelsea. The top two are ticking over nicely but the other two need to qualify to stay solvent.

One look at Leeds is enough to make their respective chairmen shiver. Liverpool desperately hope they can sneak back in but you just cannot see it and they definitely do not deserve it.

People harp on about the Liverpool sides of old winning it four times but apart from the finals, did they ever play anyone of note? Look at the teams they beat in three of the last five European Cup semi-finals they won.

Panathinaikos, Dynamo Bucharest and FC Zurich: true giants of Europe.

Nowadays, you only have to look at the big teams in there every season to see how much it has changed.

Liverpool keep clinging to the hope they can make it back to the big time but give it a few more years and they will become another Spurs, talked about as one of the major players because of long past glories.