Report: UEFA coefficient rankings – Can Spurs still get Champions League in fifth?
With four English clubs crashing out of their respective European competitions this week, the Premier League looks very unlikely to receive an extra Champions League spot for next season. However, there is still a shred of hope, and here’s why.
Tottenham currently sit in fifth place in the Premier League table, three points behind Aston Villa with a game in hand.
Despite low expectations at the start of the season, it looks like Ange Postecoglou will guide Spurs back into European competition next year.
Whether that be the Europa League or the Champions League remains to be seen, but it seems Tottenham fans will be fairly happy either way.
Will fifth place be enough for Champions League qualification?
Just two weeks ago, it seemed the Premier League would gain an extra place in Europe’s elite competition, thanks to UEFA’s plans to expand the tournament through a coefficient ranking system which would have handed a Champions League spot to the fifth-placed team this season.
However, the exit of Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, and West Ham from Europe this week, twinned with the progress of Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, and Bayer Leverkusen, has put Germany in line for that extra place.
But, the fact that Liverpool beat Atalanta last night, and West Ham managed to avoid defeat against Leverkusen in the second leg, does give English teams a boost.
Italy has already secured an extra spot, while Germany has now racked up 17.928 coefficient points. England is just behind with 17.375 points.
Put simply, if German teams can get two more wins in Europe, or one win and two draws, the extra spot will be theirs. If Aston Villa win the Conference League, though, and all the German teams bow out of Europe in the next round without reaching the required win quota, then England would jump the rankings.
Spurs Web Opinion
I have already made peace with the fact that we are probably going to be in the Europa League next season, and that’s absolutely fine. It’s still a great competition, it will be a bit less difficult to win you’d like to think, and at the end of the day, we shouldn’t sweat it in Ange’s first year anyway. Progress is progress.
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