An unexpectedly difficult week in the Champions League has increased the risk that the Premier League will lose the extra qualification place it enjoyed this season.<\/p>\n
The additional berth was an European Performance Spot awarded when UEFA expanded the Champions League to 36 teams. To earn an EPS a domestic league must finish in the top two of the annual UEFA club coefficient rankings, calculated from results in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League and adjusted by the number of clubs. This season England\u2019s total is divided by nine.<\/p>\n
Points are awarded at two for a win and one for a draw, with progression bonuses of 1.5, 1.0 and 0.5 for the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League respectively. Those rewards helped England top the current coefficient table on 22.513, ahead of Spain (18.031) and Germany (18.000).<\/p>\n
That high average supported an EPS in 2024\u201325 and helped Newcastle qualify for the 2025\u201326 Champions League from fifth place. Combined with Tottenham\u2019s Europa League triumph as a qualification route, England supplied six Champions League entrants this season and nine teams across the three UEFA competitions.<\/p>\n
With Arsenal and Manchester City relatively secure in the top two of the Premier League, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Chelsea and Liverpool are contesting the remaining domestic qualifying berths. If England retains five Champions League places only one of those four would need to miss out; if EPS status is lost and England drops to four places, two will.<\/p>\n
All nine English clubs reached the knockout phase of their respective competitions, including Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest in the Europa League and Crystal Palace in the Conference League, giving the Premier League a strong chance of another EPS. Yet the Champions League setbacks this week \u2014 with half of England\u2019s teams facing near-certain elimination ahead of second legs and none of the other three in a comfortable position \u2014 have narrowed the margin for error.<\/p>\n
The principal threat to England\u2019s standing comes from Spanish and German clubs, fuelled by the performances of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. Italy is judged less likely to overtake England with Atalanta on the brink of elimination and Bologna and Roma drawn against each other in the Europa League.<\/p>\n
The next rounds will determine whether England can preserve the extra spot or see its Champions League access revert to the top four only for 2026\u201327.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
England’s extra Champions League place is at risk after a poor week in continental competition 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,190,175,1083,172],"tags":[1162,1047],"class_list":["post-8328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","category-man-utd","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}