It is virtually a two horse race between the Red Devils and big-spenders Chelsea for 2nd spot in the Premiership after conceding the league to Arsenal who only need a mere 9 points to win the league despite of anyone else's result.

Claudio Ranieri's Chelsea are 3 points ahead of Sir Alex Ferguson's outfit and are laying in 2nd spot with United perusing them in 3rd spot with a game in hand. The Londoners have a better goal difference too but the two teams are yet to play each other for the second time this season.

"The manager has made it perfectly clear to us that he doesn't want to end up having to qualify for the Champions League," said Gary Neville, who scored a rare goal to beat Leicester 1-0 yesterday.

"We want to get into the competition automatically and that means second."

"Apart from that, we don't want Arsenal to win the league by a huge number of points."

"They are too far in front of us to catch, but we still want to get as close to them as we can,"

United had to qualify for the Champions League two seasons back and had to play Hungarian side Zalaegerszeg in a game which saw defender Wes Brown breaking his ankle.