The battle to qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League is hotting up, and the chance of an extra spot in the competition will give clubs even more hope. Can Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth spring a surprise? We look at the Opta supercomputer projections.
The race for Champions League qualification in the Premier League is hotter than ever, with seven clubs likely to be battling it out for a spot in the 2025-26 league phase.
It looks likely five English clubs, rather than four, will qualify for next season’s competition, as the strong form of Premier League sides in European competition this campaign is powering England towards a top-two finish in the seasonal UEFA coefficient rankings.
The first two of those spots look set to be locked up, as Liverpool and Arsenal begin to pull away from the pack.
Even if Manchester City and Newcastle United – who currently occupy fifth and sixth place in the table with 41 points apiece – win every one of their remaining 14 Premier League games this season, their highest possible points total would be 83 points. This means Liverpool only need to win 28 points in their final 15 matches to guarantee a top-four finish.
Arsenal are nearly certain of Champions League football next season too, according the supercomputer. The Gunners finished inside the top four places in 99.6% of the latest sims.
While it’s hardly a shock to see Liverpool and Arsenal basically guaranteed Champions League action next season, it’s the race for the other top-four (or five) spots that provides the most interesting story.
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Manchester City may have suffered a pretty horrific run of form in recent months, including a 5-1 loss at Arsenal last weekend, but the Opta supercomputer still believes they can finish strongly and secure a top-four berth. After all, this is a City side managed by one of the most successful coaches in English top-flight history, Pep Guardiola, and despite a six-point gap between themselves and Nottingham Forest in the table, the projection model backs City to overcome that deficit and still finish third.
City finish inside the top four in two-thirds of the latest season simulations (66.6%), but if they want to increase their chances of UCL football next season even further, winning their Champions League knockout play-off tie against Real Madrid would help quite a bit.
A victory over Real Madrid would boost England’s yearly UEFA coefficient ranking and go some way to making sure the nation finish inside the top two for 2024-25.
Why is that important? Well, the top two nations in UEFA’s coefficients are awarded an extra spot in next season’s Champions League league phase – something that England missed out on last season – and it would mean fifth place in the Premier League secures UCL qualification for 2025-26.
Liverpool are favourites for the Champions League with Arsenal third-likeliest winners; Chelsea win the Conference League most often in our projections; while Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United are among the four likeliest victors in the Europa League.
