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The contest between Manchester City, Liverpool, Spurs and Aston Villa for the final Champions League spot is set to be fiercer than the title race

It is time for the also-rans to accelerate. The race for fourth place in the Premier League can seldom have been so keen. The usual cartel was broken open in 2005, but that proved academic. Despite coming fifth, behind Everton, Liverpool still qualified for the Champions League as holders. This year Rafael Benítez’s team have no such comfort. Ambition and anxiety will be at their most intense. By comparison, the vying for the title itself seems humdrum in its familiarity.

The realistic contenders for the last Champions League spot are Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa. If investment was decisive the outcome would already be known. City’s expenditure has been great, but it is also accompanied by unease over the true standard of the recruits and the quality of the manager. In this little group of rivals, they alone have ditched the person who led them at the beginning of the campaign.

While the sacking of Mark Hughes was ruthless, it appeared to have an icy shrewdness. There had been only two victories in the previous 11 league games, but eyes were also fixed on the promising matches immediately before City. The new manager Roberto Mancini made the most of the opportunity and racked up victories over Stoke City, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers. A more forbidding step followed and the side keeled over at Goodison.

City must have anticipated that Mancini would show the expertise that brought success to Internazionale, but impact was restricted when only the subdued January transfer window was open to him. Patrick Vieira could be seen simply as a short-term signing and the involvement is abbreviated further now that he must serve a three-match ban. All in all, City’s situation is slightly less promising than it looks.

While the team are presently fourth with a game in hand, they have still to play Liverpool, tomorrow, as well as Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester United, Arsenal and Aston Villa. City have already defeated Arsenal and Chelsea as part of their unbeaten home record, but there is much still to be examined and reports of player unrest over Mancini’s methods are unsettling.

Misgivings exist about all clubs striving for a new status. There is, for instance, a volatility to the Tottenham squad that can lose home and away to Wolves, a side 16th in the table. Stoke’s single league victory on the road also came at White Hart Lane. It is a hindrance that Aaron Lennon has not yet been fit to play in 2010 but Tottenham, who have scored only three goals in their last six league games, do not get quite enough out of the talent on the books, despite seeming well-served in most departments.

Aston Villa, by comparison, are no conundrum at all. The best defensive record in the Premier League is not merely commendable but critical to whatever hope Martin O’Neill still holds of entry to the Champions League. Goals have been infrequent and the manager would have been fully aware before the campaign that he did not possess a consistent scorer. Gabriel Agbonlahor reached double figures in the league with two goals against Fulham at the end of last month, but other contributions are meagre.

The side have an admirable midfield, yet they are creators who have little of the striker about them. The combined tally from that area is seven league goals. James Milner has supplied four and ­Ashley Young has come up with the other three. Stewart Downing and Stilian Petrov are yet to find the net at all in the competition. More broadly, Villa have drawn a blank in five of their past seven league games. There are real virtues to the line-up, but development will hinge on finding the means to strengthen the attack and to persuade the preferred candidate that Villa Park is the right destination.

All in all, any optimism expressed by Liverpool is likely to be genuine. That conclusion seems odd in view of the poverty of their play at times. A lumbering 1-0 win over Unirea Urziceni in the Europa League on Thursday was mocked, but it was still a useful result. The Romanian side are not as inept as some would suggest and had a better record than Liverpool in the group phase of the Champions League, even if both clubs were eliminated. Benítez has steadied Liverpool to a degree, and the narrow loss to Arsenal at the Emirates had been preceded by a sequence of seven unbeaten matches in the league.

Steven Gerrard also seemed closer to top form against Unirea, particularly when he took a ball on his chest before cracking a drive that missed narrowly. The midfielder has struggled to recover his dynamism and the usual knocks seemed to take longer to ease off, but his condition will be critical to Liverpool. Regardless of the outcome against City tomorrow, a re-emergence from the treatment room of Fernando Torres in the next few weeks could be decisive. When the Spaniard last took the field in the league he scored the only goal of the match at Villa Park on 29 December.

There is some monotony in the prospect of the usual quartet taking their places at the top of the table, but the challenge is for others to supplant them.

Premier LeagueLiverpoolTottenham HotspurManchester CityAston VillaChampions LeagueKevin McCarraguardian.co.uk

• Juventus want Liverpool manager to replace Ciro Ferrara
• ‘In football you never know,’ says Benítez’s agent

Juventus have identified Rafael Benítez as the man to replace Ciro Ferrara as manager and hope to capitalise on the Spaniard’s frustration with financial constraints at Liverpool with an imminent approach for his services.

Ferrara is close to the sack following a run of six defeats in eight games, the ­latest courtesy of a ­stoppage-time ­winner by the former ­Liverpool defender John Arne Riise for Roma, and officials at the Turin club have drawn up a list of ­possible ­replacements for the inexperienced coach. Liverpool’s manager is understood to head their list and will be formally invited to join Juventus once ­Ferrara has departed, although Benítez could delay his ­appointment until the summer should he choose to accept.

Benítez is aware of the Italians’ interest and his agent, Manuel Garcia Quilon, last night refused to rule out the possibility of a stunning departure from Anfield. “Benítez to Juventus? In football you never know,” Quilon said. “I don’t know what will happen in four to five months. In football everything changes quickly, but the basic principle is that Rafa still has a four-year contract with Liverpool.” Benítez’s agent insisted, however, that a move to Juventus is not a fait accompli. Quilon added: “Right now, that hypothesis is not correct, because he is a very important figure [at Anfield]. The idols of the fans are [Steven] Gerrard, [Fernando] Torres, and Benítez.”

With the gamble on Ferrara yet to pay dividends Juventus want a more experienced, proven coach to take control at Stadio delle Alpi. The coveted Guus Hiddink, whose uncertain future as Russia coach has placed several Premier League clubs including Liverpool on alert, priced himself out of a move to Turin by demanding £3m to reprise his Chelsea ­fire-fighting role from last season and take charge until the end of this campaign, plus a £6m-a-year salary thereafter.

Benítez earns around £4m a year basic at Anfield under the terms of the five-year contract he signed last March. Juventus may struggle to match those terms but Benítez could earn more net in Italy on a reduced contract, given the 50% tax rate that comes into effect in Britain in April.

While Benítez, a fluent Italian speaker who cites the former Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi as his tactical role-model, has been fiercely loyal to Liverpool he has become increasingly dismayed at the impact of the club’s substantial debt on his squad. The 49-year-old is acutely aware that the problems caused by the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett will ultimately affect his reputation, indeed he has attracted fierce criticism for a poor season, and there is a sense a move to a club of Juventus’ standing may suit all parties.

The Liverpool hierarchy intend to review Benítez’s position at the end of this campaign, one that has brought an early exit from the Champions League, FA Cup, Carling Cup and no Premier League title challenge, but cannot afford the maximum £16m he could claim if sacked. Hicks and Gillett would not face such a crippling bill should their manager walk away, although they hope to improve the club’s finances with new investment in the coming months.

With his job under pressure Benítez may view Juventus as a welcome release, even though the Italians’ hierarchy is also beset by problems. Luciano Moggi, the former director general who was disgraced in the Calciopoli scandal, launched an outspoken attack on the club president Jean-Claude Blanc yesterday, saying: “Juventus are paying the price for the inadequacy and incompetence of their directors”.

Several Italian newspapers are reporting that, should Benítez accept the ­Juventus offer, Hiddink would replace the Spaniard at Anfield. They include La Stampa, which is owned by the Exor investment company and whose chairman, John Elkann, is also vice-chairman of Juventus and the grandson of the club’s late former owner, Gianni Agnelli. Last week Liverpool officials rejected claims by Hiddink’s agent that they had made an approach for the Dutchman.

Benítez’s transfer strategy has stalled in recent days with Ryan Babel remaining at the club despite earlier attempts to offload him, Sunderland’s Kenwyne Jones priced out of his reach and no answer, as yet, on the pre-contract offers made to strikers Milan Jovanovic of Standard Liège and Bordeaux’s Marouane Chamakh. On the eve of tonight’s Premier League visit to Wolves, where Gerrard will return from a hamstring injury, Benítez admitted he does not expect to see any of the money Hicks will raise through the £350m sale of his Texas Rangers baseball franchise. He also confirmed the club’s balancing act in the transfer market is an attempt to entice new investors to Anfield.

“I don’t think so, no,” Benítez said of Hicks’s windfall. “We are now run like a company and they are another company. It is a different thing. The majority of clubs are now run like companies. You have to think about football and business, both things together. This year we have done a fantastic job trying to balance the books and to do the right job for the company. In football, we had to take some risks and we have to improve now on the pitch.

“This year we have had to sell if we want to buy and keep things level. That’s part of the risk, and sometimes it has gone well and sometimes less well. If people can see the club is healthy, it’ll be easier to bring in investors.”

Rafael BenítezLiverpoolJuventusPremier LeagueSerie AAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk

• Goakeeper defends Benítez’s Champions League record
• ‘Miracles? They happen, particularly at Liverpool’

Anfield’s worried bean-counters may disagree, but José Reina has issued a staunch defence of Liverpool’s Champions League record under Rafael Benítez and insisted it is “not a disaster” if the club are eliminated at the group stage. He conceded, however, that Liverpool’s inability to ­ control their destiny in Group E is “disgraceful”.

The Champions League has played a pivotal part in Benítez’s reign at Anfield in terms of both finances and the manager’s rapport with the club’s support. Five successive qualifications for the competition as Liverpool manager and progress into the knockout phase in each of his five seasons so far has brought at least £100m into the club since his appointment in 2004. That record provided no consolation to Liverpool after Lisandro López’s 90th-minute equaliser for Lyon on Wednesday forced Benítez to concede they would need a miracle to avoid elimination, and the Anfield club will be out if Fiorentina beat the French club in Florence on 24 November. But it has prompted Reina to place Liverpool’s current troubles into context amid the continued despondency around Anfield.

“I do not accept that not going through will be a disaster for the club,” Reina said. “We have been in the Champions League for several years, one failure is not a disaster. Not many teams have reached the semi-final twice and two finals – including a title victory – in the last few seasons. It can happen again, we get closer to our real form with every game. Any team would miss the quality of the players who are injured at the moment, but we have others who can play and who can produce the right performances to get us out of this mess.”

Liverpool must beat Debrecen away and Fiorentina at home to have a chance of qualifying, but will miss out on an estimated £10m in Uefa prize-money and a cut from England’s lucrative television “market pool” should they drop into the Europa League. Benitez’s transfer budget will feel the impact of those losses at the end of a year when he was forced to balance the books on signings. Nevertheless, Reina was scathing in his assessment of the team’s position in Group E.

“It is not the end,” Reina said. “We have got two games to go and disgracefully we are not depending on ourselves; we need Lyon to get something in Fiorentina. Our priority is to win our two games that remain and we will keep trying. Miracles? They happen, particularly at Liverpool.”

The Spain international took encouragement from Liverpool’s display in France where, with seven players out and Fernando Torres and Daniel Agger playing with injury, they created enough chances to have revived their Champions League campaign before López struck. “That was our best performance in the Champions League so far this season. Even in some of our league wins, we didn’t play as well as that. We didn’t deserve anything but a win. I’m really disappointed as we were unlucky. We have got to look for the positives and that is we played well under big, big pressure. We can handle the pressure. We can trust in ourselves and we will turn this situation around, I am sure of that.”

LiverpoolChampions LeagueAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk