Football: Manchester United qualifies for Champions League; Aston Villa stay up in Premier League

Leicester's Jamie Vardy wipes his face during the English Premier League match between Leicester City and Manchester United. Photo / AP

Manchester United and Chelsea qualified for the Champions League at the expense of Leicester on a frantic final day of the English Premier League season this morning, while Bournemouth and Watford were relegated to end five-year stays in the top flight.

United won 2-0 at Leicester through goals by Bruno Fernandes and Jesse Lingard to give Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's team a third-place finish.

Chelsea beat Wolverhampton 2-0 after a goal and an assist by Mason Mount and finished in the fourth and final Champions League qualifying place above Leicester, which has been in the top four for most of the season.

While Solskjaer has overseen a remarkable turnaround for United in the second half of the season to finish in third, Leicester collapsed to throw away the chance of what seemed a certain top-four finish.

Having been 14 points behind Leicester in January, United finished four points above the 2016 champions.

When the pandemic forced the Premier League into a 100-day shutdown in March, Leicester was third with an eight-point lead over then fifth-place United.

But Leicester collected only nine points from nine games after the league resumed and was also overtaken by Chelsea.

Leicester, instead, will play in the Europa League along with Tottenham, which drew 1-1 at Crystal Palace to secure sixth place — above Wolverhampton on goal difference.

Relegation battle

The battle to avoid the two remaining relegation places went to the wire as Aston Villa scored in the 84th minute, conceded a minute later, then held on for 1-1 draw at West Ham to survive. Captain Jack Grealish scored Villa's goal in what could be his last game for his boyhood club.

Bournemouth did what it had to do and beat Everton, 3-1, but ended up one point behind Villa. Watford was also relegated as the next-to-last team after losing 3-2 at Arsenal.

Manchester City passed 100 goals for the campaign with a 5-0 win over last-place and already-demoted Norwich, a game that marked the last in the Premier League for David Silva after 10 years with City. Kevin De Bruyne got a record-tying 20th assist of the season and also scored twice.

Liverpool ended its title-winning season with a 3-1 win at Newcastle and finished on a club-record 99 points.

All Whites striker Chris Wood netted his 14th goal of the season for Burnley after equalising before halftime against Brighton before his side went down 2-1.

Also, Southampton beat Sheffield United 3-1, with Danny Ings scoring his 22nd goal of the season. That left him one behind Leicester's Jamie Vardy, who won the Golden Boot as the league's highest scorer.