Liverpool and Chelsea grabbed the final two Champions League places but Leicester City fell short of a top-four finish for the second successive season on a nerve-jangling final day of the Premier League season on Sunday.
Liverpool avoided any drama as they beat Crystal Palace 2-0 to finish in third spot – a silver lining to a difficult season in which their defence of the title crumbled.
Chelsea lost 2-1 at Aston Villa – a result that could have been curtains for them in the top-four battle.
But they were saved as arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur twice came from a goal down to win 4-2 at Leicester City.
Harry Kane was on target for Tottenham to win the Premier League Golden Boot award for the third time with 23 goals while Gareth Bale struck twice late on.
Jamie Vardy scored twice from the spot for Leicester who also let a top-four finish slip last season in the final week.
Liverpool finished on 69 points with Chelsea on 67 and Leicester, who will enter the Europa League, on 66.
Second-placed Manchester United beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 to finish 12 points adrift of Manchester City. It was Nuno Espirito Santo’s final game as manager of Wolves.
West Ham United will join Leicester City in the Europa League after finishing sixth – rounding off a superb season in style with a 3-0 home win over Southampton.
Tottenham will be England’s representative in the inaugural Europa Conference League although that will be scant consolation for the London club for whom Kane could have possibly played his last game on Sunday, with a big-money move likely.
Bale also scored twice for Tottenham on what was probably the last game of his loan spell from Real Madrid.
For a long time it had looked as though Liverpool would miss out on the Champions League, but Juergen Klopp’s injury-hit side ended the season with five successive wins. Sadio Mane struck twice against Palace in what was 73-year-old Roy Hodgson’s last game in charge of the south London club. “If you had told me five weeks ago that we would finish third, I would think it is not possible,” Klopp said.
“I’m so proud of what they’ve done the last 10 or 15 games and the reaction of the team in bad times.”
Chelsea can now go into next weekend’s Champions League final against Manchester City without the added pressure of needing to win it to be part of next season’s competition.
But they hardly helped themselves. Villa led 2-0 with goals by Bertrand Traore and an Anwar El Ghazi penalty before Ben Chilwell pulled a goal back for Thomas Tuchel’s side.
It did not matter that they could not equalise as news drifted through of Tottenham’s win at Leicester.
“The performance was by far good enough to win the game. We did not score, conceded two cheap goals and it was a defeat in the end. We are lucky to escape today,” Tuchel said.
