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

George Gillett may have a strange take on the definition of a blip, his considered analysis of a moribund season for Liverpool, but at least there is some respite for Rafael Benítez. His team could not afford to fail against Tottenham Hotspur if their prospects of a top-four finish were to retain more life than their Champions League, FA Cup and Carling Cup campaigns and a resolute display kept Harry Redknapp’s team in sight in that contest last night.

For all the rancour and recrimination Liverpool are now just a point behind Spurs after Dirk Kuyt’s early goal lifted the tension around Anfield and his late penalty after Sébastien Bassong had brought down David Ngog heralded a determined response from Benitez’s men. It is now Redknapp with cause for alarm in the race for Champions League qualification.

This was never likely to be a Liverpool XI to enrapture with its quality but the spirit shown since that abysmal FA Cup defeat by Reading a week ago suggests the threats to reputations and employment have galvanised Benítez’s team. A siege mentality has grown not only on widespread criticism but the loss to injury of Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard, Yossi Benayoun, Glen Johnson and Daniel Agger – the combined source of 58% of Liverpool’s goals this season – and a change in tack from Benítez himself.

The Liverpool manager rarely strays into emotive, soundbite territory in press conferences, or at least not on the topic of his team’s prospects, so his admission that Tottenham represented “make or break” for the season demonstrated the seriousness of his side’s plight. A reaction from a demoralised squad was more pressing than the Spaniard’s usual diplomacy, and from every player on display, whether accustomed to the pressure like Jamie Carragher, or desperate to fill the injury void and answer their many detractors, such as Philipp Degen and Sotirios Kyrgiakos, he received one.

Carragher called the Liverpool team into a huddle before kick-off and led by zealous example throughout, manically so at times. Tottenham were made to look subdued by contrast and resembled another of those European scalps stunned by Anfield’s hostility until finally beginning to pass their way dangerously around the Liverpool midfield late in the first half.

Liverpool pressed from the off with Carragher, captain in the absence of Gerrard, flying into both Wilson Palacios and Niko Kranjcar to concede a blatant free-kick that he protested against with a creditable impression of innocence. His next challenge was also illegal, although the visitors could not benefit as it was inflicted on Javier Mascherano, while a rampaging pursuit of a lost cause brought Anfield to its feet at the end of the first period when it resulted in a Liverpool corner. From Albert Riera’s delivery, Kuyt had a goalbound header hacked clear by Gareth Bale and Martin Skrtel sent the subsequent rebound wastefully high over Heurelho Gomes’ crossbar.

A goal at that point would have given Liverpool the rare luxury of a comfortable two-goal lead, after Kuyt had taken only six minutes to atone for the miss that cost his side a precious victory at Stoke City on Saturday. The breakthrough came via route one with a polished touch. José Reina saved a low cross from Bale at the third attempt with Kranjcar closing in and, from his launched clearance, Kuyt chested the ball expertly into the path of Alberto Aquilani, who rolled possession back to the Dutchman. Kuyt seized his rare opportunity to lead the Liverpool line with a measured finish from 18 yards into Gomes’ right-hand corner.

Tottenham took more than 30 minutes to shake off their lethargy and match Liverpool’s endeavour, although their approach was unlikely to brook many complaints from the home side. A central defence of Kyrgiakos and Martin Skrtel offered an open invitation to the pace and movement of a Jermain Defoe or Luka Modric but, as they showed at the Britannia Stadium, that pairing was more than comfortable with an aerial assault. For the majority of the first half Redknapp’s team barely troubled the Liverpool defence, with too many hopeful long punts presenting Peter Crouch with a forlorn task against his former club.

It was the 45th minute before Spurs displayed the invention required to unsettle Liverpool, Jermaine Jenas and Wilson Palacios combining to release Modric who was unable to beat Reina with a low shot to the goalkeeper’s left. That opening shaped the visitors’ tactics after the interval and the improvement was marked, with Jenas testing Reina from 20 yards, although Liverpool engineered the better chances.

Riera, making his first start since the goal-less draw at Blackburn on 5 December, headed against Gomes’ bar from a Carragher cross and Degen should have doubled the advantage only to lose his nerve completely with just the Brazilian to beat. Kuyt was again at the heart of the Liverpool threat, seizing on a defensive error to burst clear and release Degen into acres of space on the right. As soon as Anfield realised it was the Swiss full-back with the game at his mercy the noise dropped. They clearly knew what was to come, as Degen declined to shoot and sought out a return to Kuyt instead, only to play the ball behind his aghast team-mate.

Premier LeagueLiverpoolTottenham HotspurAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk