AMSTERDAM – Despite a solid outing from Timothy Chandler, Eintracht Frankfurt saw their Europa League hopes take a huge hit with Saturday's 2-0 Bundesliga loss at Borussia Dortmund.
The US right back, who was not culpable on either BvB goal, led the visitors with four tackles. Chandler also added three pass picks and two clearances, all without committing a foul.
Chandler also had offensive impact, with no handling turnovers to his name and 14 positive pass completions in or into the attacking half. He also set up a good scoring chance via the cross in each half, but it came on a day when Eintracht failed to get any of their 11 shot attempts on goal. Now winless in five, the visitors fell to six points back of the last Europa League invite with four games to play.
Over in the England's Premier League, Geoff Cameron went the distance at right back as Stoke City all but waved goodbye to their European hopes despite rallying for a 1-1 home share with Sunderland.
The hosts fell behind almost immediately due to a netminder gaffe, but carried play for most of the remainder. Cameron was only called on to make two tackles and two clearances, but worked without a handling turnover and pitched in with eight positive passes inside the Sunderland half. Stoke have no margin for error left, standing 11 points shy of the last Europa League slot with but four rounds to go.
Meanwhile, DeAndre Yedlin watched on from the away dugout as Tottenham clawed back twice to retain that final Europa League place with a 2-2 draw at Southampton.
One flight down in the Championship, Birmingham City got a top-shelf outing from center back Jonathan Spector in a 1-0 home defeat of Charlton.
Working cleanly without a foul or ball-handling turnover, the veteran handyman completed all but four of his 22 passes while notching four interceptions and four clearances at the defensive end. By notching their sixth shutout from Spector's 13 starts in the heart of defense, Birmingham climbed two rungs to 11th place.
Elsewhere, Daniel Williams and Reading missed a chance to clinch safety, falling 2-0 at home to Brentford.
The US midfielder connected on 38 of 46 passes, including 12 positive passes in the attacking half and a pair of clever set-ups. His slip pass led to a Jamie Mackie misfire from a great position on 20 minutes and a long lead eight minutes from time allowed Jack Stacy to force a close-range save. Despite the efforts of Williams, the slumping Royals dropped their third straight league game.
Eric Lichaj had a decent left-back display cut short by injury in Nottingham Forest's 2-1 loss at Ipswich Town. The American departed just past the hour mark with the game tied, but the fading Reds leaked late to lose for the fifth time in a seven-game win drought.
To the north in Norway's Tippeligaen, Rhett Bernstein came on for the final two minutes, long enough for promoted Mjøndalen to claw back for a 2-2 equalizer away to fellow unbeatens Odds BK. Thanks to a stoppage time strike by Sanel Kapidžić, the Brown Army tentatively pulled into sixth place after four matches.
