LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Chelsea’s challenge for a place in next season’s Champions League faltered in a toothless 1-0 defeat at Arsenal on Sunday as Fulham beat Tottenham 2-0.

Mikel Merino scored the only goal of a disappointing contest at the Emirates as Arsenal pulled clear in second place and to within 12 points of runaway leaders Liverpool.

Chelsea badly missed the presence of the absent Cole Palmer due to injury as they meekly surrendered to a damaging defeat for their hopes of a top-four finish.

The Blues remain in fourth for now but have five sides from Manchester City in fifth to Aston Villa in ninth within four points of Enzo Maresca’s team.

Both managers are hoping to be stronger after the upcoming international break.

Bukayo Saka is nearing a return for Arsenal, while Maresca is confident of having Palmer, Nico Jackson and Noni Madueke back when they are next in action at home to Tottenham on April 3.

“We did enough to deserve to win the game,” said Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta. “Now we have the international break so let’s take a chance to breathe and bring some players back hopefully.”

Arsenal have struggled badly for goals since the loss of Kai Havertz to a season-ending injury forced midfielder Merino into a makeshift centre-forward role.

The Spanish international proved the match winner from a corner as he looped a header from Martin Odegaard’s delivery inside the far post on 20 minutes.

Chelsea barely threatened but were nearly gifted a route back into the game when David Raya fumbled Marc Cucurella’s shot and the ball trickled wide.

At the other end, Chelsea’s Robert Sanchez made a brilliant stop to prevent Merino doubling Arsenal’s lead with the best effort of the second half.

But the game petered out with little goalmouth action as a limp performance will do little to quieten the critics of Maresca’s style of play among the Chelsea support.

“There was not a big difference in the two games between us,” said Maresca. “Given the injuries, we fought until the end.”

– Spurs’ European hangover –
Tottenham kept their season alive by reaching the Europa League quarter-finals with victory over AZ Alkmaar on Thursday, but suffered the latest in a series of European hangovers at Craven Cottage.

Victory for Fulham propels Marco Silva’s men into the race for Champions League places as they climb to eighth, four points off the top four and three outside the top five.

A top-five finish will almost certainly secure a place in Europe’s top club competition next season thanks to the strong performance of English sides in European competitions.

Spurs, though, have struggled to handle the burden of Thursday nights when it comes to their Premier League form.

Ange Postecoglou’s side have won just three times in the 10 league matches that have followed a midweek Europa League fixture.

“It’s been a difficult campaign for sure,” said Spurs captain Son Heung-min.

“But I feel we’ve lost too many games that we should have got stuff out of, and this was one of those games.”

Fulham had to wait until 78 minutes to take the lead when Rodrigo Muniz steered home from Andreas Pereira’s pass.

Ryan Sessegnon then curled in a brilliant second against his former club to secure victory late on.

Spurs remain down in 13th, now 10 points off the top half.

Manchester United are in action later on Sunday when Ruben Amorim’s team visit lowly Leicester.