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Jurgen Klopp has shrugged off Mohamed Salah’s tweet that there was “no excuse” for Liverpool’s failure to qualify for the Champions League as a “completely normal” reaction to their disappointment. After six successive top-four finishes, which led to three Champions League finals and victory in the competition in 2019, Liverpool were condemned to fifth place this season when Manchester United beat Chelsea on Thursday. And then Salah tweeted: “I’m totally devastated. There’s absolutely no excuse for this. We had everything we needed to make it to next year’s Champions League and we failed. We are Liverpool and qualifying to the competition is the bare minimum.” But Klopp insisted it was just a spur-of-the-moment reaction and said his top scorer is fine now. He said: “It is completely normal. In the world of social media so many bad things happen constantly and I don’t think that was one of them. It was just a normal description of his situation, of his feeling, and in that moment directly after the game he’s right. It’s not the moment to immediately any send optimistic messages but maybe an hour or a day later. “The moment when it is a fact you cannot qualify for the Champions League anymore... even when I knew after the last game [against Aston Villa] they [Newcastle and Manchester United] need only one point, for me it was clear they would get that point. So I drew kind of a line underneath it. I’m a very optimistic person but, in this moment, I couldn’t see it. “It was just a normal description of his feeling, and he’s right, but I saw him in the canteen an hour ago and he was smiling. He is not in a bad mood.” Liverpool’s season will end at Southampton on Sunday when Darwin Nunez may be fit again to feature and Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate are doubts. Klopp has admitted that Fabio Carvalho could leave Liverpool on loan next season after a tough first year at Anfield. He said: “This was not Fabio’s best year in his career but it might have been Fabio’s most important. No player has impressed me more. It is true. This talented boy came here with big dreams and big expectations. It didn’t work out but his work ethic will give him a fantastic career. I am not sure if he goes on loan or we keep him.” Klopp believes Liverpool, who want to sign two midfielders this summer, could struggle to get their top transfer targets straight away but is unconcerned providing they arrive by early July. Liverpool often make early signings in windows and Klopp added: It’s always possible things don’t go as quick as you want. It’s not only possible, it is probably likely. The better the players you want the lesser is the desire of the other club to let him go. “And that’s exactly what we are prepared for. But it’s a long window and a long pre-season and a long break in between so we have time if we get in players tomorrow or in six or seven weeks it is not a game-changer for me.” Read More Mohamed Salah ‘devastated’ as Liverpool fail to qualify for Champions League Roberto Firmino ends glorious Liverpool career with imperfect goodbye Manchester United owe Champions League return to one man

And so a season that began with Chelsea as the reigning world champions nears its sorry end with a very different addition to their songbook. “You’re nothing special,” their fans sang. “We lose every week.” Although some weeks they lose twice. It was the night a club clinched Champions League football: not Chelsea, though Todd Boehly thought as recently as early February that a top-four finish was possible. Instead, they are 27 points behind Newcastle, 29 adrift of Manchester United, closer in points to the relegation zone than the top nine, the club who conquered Europe in 2021 now stand sixth in London alone; they are guaranteed to finish third in west London. Chelsea were sixth in the division when they sacked Thomas Tuchel, a decision that seemed rash then and looks positively stupid now. It has been a season of four managers, 16 signings and £600m of spending. After the false dawn of wins in Graham Potter’s first three league games, they had 19 points from nine. Since then, Chelsea have 24 from 28 matches. It is relegation form: indeed, Leicester, who could be relegated, have more in the same time. In all competitions, they have scored 22 goals in their last 31 games. They have sustained terrible form over a long period of time. “Results for Chelsea this season: not good enough,” said Frank Lampard succinctly. “It has been a bad year.” No one escapes untainted from this. Possibly their greatest-ever player and definitely their record goalscorer has a 10 per cent win rate from his second spell in charge; the idea that a caretaker could plot a path past Real Madrid and to Champions League glory felt fanciful. Boehly’s infamous prediction that they would beat Real 3-0 in the Bernabeu was, in its own way, wonderfully delusional. Since then, Chelsea have scored eight goals and conceded 20. In the Premier League, they are certain to finish with a negative goal difference. It is partly a consequence of terrible finishing, partly just another marker of how virtually everything that could go wrong has. In all competitions, Chelsea remain outscored by Erling Haaland this season. They at least created chances in a 4-1 defeat at Old Trafford. They defended terribly, however. But the outcome was familiar. Chelsea used to be the best; now they are a team who need to play the worst (although maybe not Southampton, who have beaten them twice). They have faced the eventual top 10 in 19 matches this season – 21 if their two cup defeats to Manchester City are included – and won one: even that was against Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa, not Unai Emery’s Villa. Individual ability has sometimes compensated against lesser sides. Their record against the top 10, however, illustrates how Chelsea have not been the sum of their parts. Lampard described their training and preparation as “collectively the thing that’s been glaringly short”. He lamented a lack of “standards” but, two years ago under Tuchel, the standards were high. Now the price is. Their parts have never been costlier in a season of record outlay. But their player of the year is a 38-year-old they got on a free transfer, in Thiago Silva. The 18-year-old Lewis Hall has been the greatest positive of back-to-back trips to Manchester, but looks a more compelling understudy to Ben Chilwell at left-back than the £62m signing Marc Cucurella. Meanwhile, Wesley Fofana, the £70m centre-back, has gifted both Manchester clubs goals within five days with poor passes. Mykhailo Mudryk is the £88m forward with no goals. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was signed to play for Thomas Tuchel, who was sacked when the striker was one game into his Chelsea career. Joao Felix, an utterly unsuccessful loan signing, cost £16m in fee and wages and only found his clinical touch when 4-0 down at Old Trafford. He is an example of how Chelsea have burned through money. There isn’t a hit among those 16 signings yet; many – Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Enzo Fernandez, Fofana, Aubameyang, Cucurella – would command far less if sold now. Instead, they may have to lose Mason Mount, the kind of player Mauricio Pochettino would probably appreciate. They have amassed too many players to manage, or even to accommodate in a dressing room. “People talk about squad size, things that are very valid,” said Lampard. “There isn’t a huge stability in the team and squad.” He played in a time when instability almost seemed an asset to Chelsea. Now, the needless scale and pace of change has accelerated a decline. Chelsea have plunged themselves into a downward spiral, with talent but not cohesion, clarity of thought, consistency of selection, a style of play, a system or goals. Pochettino will inherit a mess having presumably ensured he does not take charge before the end of this season so he cannot be blamed for it. “It needs a rebuild,” Lampard said. “The club will move on in the summer in terms of the squad.” And so, at the end of a season that has been a masterpiece of stupidity, the fourth man to coach a squad that has had over half a billion spent on 16 players concluded they still need a rebuild. Read More Manchester United owe Champions League return to one man Jose Mourinho takes snide dig at Tottenham and Daniel Levy How Chelsea match is pivotal to Man Utd’s hopes of signing Mason Mount

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Here we are! The end of the road in Fantasy Premier League this season - gameweek 38. Twenty teams, ten games all kicking off at 4.30pm GMT and one final chance to get some points in before the FPL league tables are finalised. With that in mind, here are five essential picks for your team this week: (All prices accurate as of Thursday 25 May) For more picks, differential top tips, chip strategy and more, sign up for our newsletter by entering your email address at the top of this article or clicking here. Sam Johnstone - £4.4m Consider bringing in Sam Johnstone to stand between the sticks. With Nottingham Forest now safe, expect Steve Cooper's side to take their foot off the gas in their final game against Crystal Palace. The English shot-stopper has averaged over four points per game in his 12 appearances in the League this season, and Palace's recent form, which includes three clean sheets in their last seven, should give you hope that Johnstone could punch above his averages. Crucially, at just £4.4m, Johnstone would allow you to re-direct funds from goal to more important areas of the squad. Mohamed Salah - £13.1m The Egyptian winger has enjoyed yet another astonishing season in terms of output, which has perhaps slipped under the radar given the exploits of Erling Haaland and Liverpool's struggles. Against an already relegated Southampton, the dynamic forward is an essential pick and is a strong candidate for captaincy. James Maddison - £7.8m Cometh the hour, cometh the man? Leicester's talisman simply must perform against West Ham if his side have any chance at staying up. His (and Leicester's) attacking output has actually been quite respectable (currently his second-best season for goals in the Premier League), despite their league position, and the maverick midfielder grabbed a goal in the reverse fixture at the London Stadium. Eberechi Eze - £5.7m A favourite of The Independent’s FPL newsletter, it just feels wrong to leave out the inspired Eberechi Eze for this final gameweek. Whilst sentimentality may have had a small part to play, the English midfielder's numbers speak for themselves, with Eze standing as the top-scoring Crystal Palace asset this season - no mean feat, given competition from the likes of Wilfried Zaha, Michael Olise, Vicente Guaita and Jordan Ayew. His final fixture is a kind one, too, as outlined above for our goalkeeper pick this week - Forest need to be wary of the threat Eze poses if they stand any chance. Rico Lewis - £3.8m An outside choice - but why not consider the ridiculously cheap Rico Lewis for the final day? City proved that a clean sheet with a much-rotated XI (we daren't use the words 'weaker' and 'Manchester City' in the same sentence) is possible against Chelsea in GW37, and we should expect to see a similar number of fringe players in the squad for the Brentford game. As much as selection is a guessing game with Pep Guardiola, Lewis seems like a strong candidate to start, given the upcoming FA Cup and Champions League finals for City. For more picks, differential top tips, chip strategy and more, sign up for our newsletter by entering your email address at the top of this article. Read More Fantasy Premier League tips for GW37: Wilson, Dias, de Gea and more £600m spent but still outscored by Haaland – Chelsea’s masterpiece of stupidity ‘It is theatre’: Inside the chaos of a final-day Premier League relegation battle £600m spent but still outscored by Haaland – Chelsea’s masterpiece of stupidity ‘It is theatre’: Inside the chaos of a final-day Premier League relegation battle Mark Robins vowed to lead Coventry back to the Premier League – Michael Doyle

Manchester United secured a return to the Champions League next season with an emphatic 4-1 win over Chelsea at Old Trafford.

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