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

• Manager backs players to make it to South Africa
• Gabriel Agbonlahor bidding to emulate Peter Withe

Martin O’Neill believes Aston Villa’s next two fixtures offer an opportunity for the sizeable England contingent within his side to press their claims to be part of Fabio Capello’s World Cup plans. Villa face Tottenham Hotspur tonight and Manchester United on Wednesday and O’Neill views the matches as a chance for those on the periphery to make an impression against stellar opponents and claim one of the four squad places he predicts will be up for grabs.

James Milner, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and Emile Heskey will be flying the flag for Villa and England at White Hart Lane in a game that brings together two clubs with ambitions of breaking into the top four and up to a dozen England internationals. For those on the fringe of the England set-up the World Cup clock is ticking but O’Neill offered words of encouragement yesterday when he was asked whether there was still a chance to change Capello’s mind.

“I think the next two league tests for us would be that,” said the Villa manager. “I’m quite sure that there are a number of players that Capello has already earmarked for South Africa. But there must be at least four positions in the squad where you think that people’s form could dictate what would happen. And if somebody was absolutely bang in form up against someone you had a bit of time for but was out of form, I think that must have a bearing nearer the time.”

He added: “If you are playing very well for your club and you’re playing against top quality teams, which is the case with the next two league games, I would be really surprised if Capello wouldn’t analyse these games,” continued O’Neill. “It’s getting close to picking the squad for the next friendly game, against Egypt in March. That will be going through his head at this minand he might decide to view two or three players that he might think about using in the World Cup.”

Agbonlahor is presenting a strong case to feature against Egypt after scoring twice at Fulham last Saturday, in front of Franco Baldini, Capello’s right-hand man, to take his Premier League tally for the season into double figures. Whether Capello would consider picking him as well as Jermain Defoe is unclear but O’Neill believes Agbonlahor is improving all the time and capable of becoming the first Villa player to score 20 league goals in a season since Peter Withe in 1980-81.

“I think Defoe is as a good a goalscorer as there is in the Premiership,” he said. “He’s a natural finisher. But Gabby also has other aspects to his game. He’s very strong now on hold-up play, bringing other people into it. I think he learned that during the time when he played on his own up front last season. He is particularly pleased with his goal haul at this minute and I think he’s capable of going on and getting 20 League goals.”

Aston VillaMartin O’NeillTottenham HotspurPremier LeagueStuart Jamesguardian.co.uk