Why Manchester United’s poor results may deny Premier League a fifth Champions League spot this season

English clubs are currently on course to miss out on a fifth Champions League spot next season – partly due to Manchester United’s poor early results in the competition.

The Champions League will expand from 32 to 36 teams from 2024/25 onwards, and two of the extra places will go to the countries with the best record in all European competitions this season.

Last season, England and Italy topped UEFA’s rankings, with Manchester City winning the Champions League and West Ham United lifting the Europa Conference League. Had the new regulations been introduced a year earlier, Liverpool would have qualified for the Champions League after finishing fifth in last season’s Premier League.

This season though, English clubs have already lost five of their 18 matches – Brighton were beaten by AEK Athens, Aston Villa lost to Legia Warsaw, Arsenal suffered defeat at Lens and Manchester United have lost both of their Champions League fixtures to Bayern Munich and Galatasaray.

Victories for Liverpool, West Ham and Aston Villa last night aided the Premier League cause, but England currently still sit only eighth in UEFA’s rankings. Turkey and Belgium are currently the top two – England are also behind the Netherlands, Greece and the Czech Republic, plus possibly more crucially, Italy and Spain.

The rankings are based on points accrued by clubs throughout the season in UEFA’s three club competitions – teams get two ranking points for a win, one point for a draw, plus bonus points for qualification to later rounds, so the further English sides progress, the more opportunity they may have to overhaul countries currently ahead of them in the rankings.

Importantly though, England’s ranking is also based on the average performance of all eight of their clubs involved in European competition this season, so poor results for some clubs – and particularly early eliminations – would drag the average down considerably.

VIDEO: How The New 2024/25 Champions League Format Actually Works

Spain have already seen Osasuna knocked out in the play-off round of the Europa Conference League, which will affect their average as the season goes on. Belgium and Italy are both yet to have a club eliminated – likewise Germany, close behind England in the rankings, have all of their clubs still involved.

Should England eventually succeed with getting a fifth Champions League spot this season, they would only receive confirmation in the final weeks of the current campaign – meaning that it will remain uncertain for months whether finishing fifth in this term’s Premier League will be good enough to qualify for the Champions League or not. Aston Villa currently sit fifth in the Premier League.

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Meanwhile, David Beckham has explained that he never wanted to leave the club in 2003, but Sir Alex Ferguson “made up his mind”.

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Chris joined FourFourTwo in 2015 and has reported from 20 countries, in places as varied as Jerusalem and the Arctic Circle. He’s interviewed Pele, Zlatan and Santa Claus (it’s a long story), as well as covering the World Cup, Euro 2020 and the Clasico. He previously spent 10 years as a newspaper journalist, and completed the 92 in 2017.