Thursday night was a bad evening for Liverpool and West Ham — and Tottenham will have been watching on nervously as it also proved to be a damaging day for the Premier League's hopes of a fifth Champions League qualification spot.
With the Champions League format changing from the 2024/25 season, four extra places in the competition are up for grabs. Two of those will be handed to countries with the highest UEFA coefficient ranking based on results from teams' results in Europe during the 2023/24 campaign.
Nations are awarded points for how far each club goes in a UEFA competition, with an average being sought for each country when the scores are divided by the number of their clubs taking part in the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League. More points for round-by-round progression are awarded in the Champions League, with these being scaled down through the tiers of competition, albeit the amount of points for a win (two) remains the same across all three tournaments.
England held second place in the UEFA rankings heading into April's European fixtures, with five teams involved: Arsenal and Manchester City (Champions League quarter-finalists); Liverpool and West Ham (Europa League quarter-finalists); Aston Villa (Europa Conference League quarter-finalists). Italy were way out in front in the rankings, with England second and Germany third. As things stood, the team finishing fifth in the Premier League would also join the top four in the Champions League next season.
Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester United all have ambitions of a top-five finish, though Spurs are well placed for a top-four finish regardless: Ange Postecoglou's side sit fourth on 60 points, level with Villa but with a game in
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