It wasn't going to be surprising to see Athletic Bilbao staying out of top four at the end of the season. Now they have really thrown away their chance completely by thinking that Atletico Madrid would win. Aside from that Simeone and his students must be really devastated after that Dortmund loss. They really looked determined for qualifying for even the finale.
Now Simeone will at least make sure that they qualify for the Champions League. By the way it hasn't been much time since the board extended Simeone's contract. They must still be contented with his work. Maybe not in the La Liga but in the Champions League they have been really good this season.
The draw against Granada made it even more difficult for Bilbao to penetrate the top four of the standings and finish in the Champions League zone at the end of the season. On paper, Bilbao should be able to secure full points because they have advantages in many aspects, we know that Granada is only a club in the degradation zone. However, the draw was fair for both of them, because Granada really needed additional points to get out of the red zone.
From Bilbao point of view, they certainly interpreted the draw as loss and made them very disappointed, where they failed to take advantage of a good opportunity to continue pressing ATM. Now Bilbao is 3 points adrift of ATM, where if Simeone fleet manages to beat Alaves tomorrow, then Bilbao hopes of playing in the Champions League are getting slimmer. I think the ATM match against Alaves is quite easy to predict, because we know the differences between the two teams are very different.
Meanwhile, I think the competition for Champions League slots will continue until the end of the season, where I believe that ATM will succeed in finishing in that zone. Apart from that, with their elimination from the Champions League, ATM will now focus completely on La Liga and try as hard as possible to sweep all the remaining matches in the future. The contract renewal given to Simeone indicates that the management and club officials still have full confidence in the man from Argentina.