With the Premier League's top 3 constantly increasing the gap to those below, the race for the final Champions League spot (or two) and the places in both the Europa League and Conference League is heating up!
The way it’s going it looks like the Premier League will have five Champions League places which allows the Conference League to go down to 8th place.
The teams competing for the Europa League and the Europa Conference League places are Manchester United, Newcastle United, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Brighton and Hove Albion, Bournemouth and Chelsea. It will be very tight for who gets which position.
Before the season Manchester United and Chelsea would have been hoping for Champion League football this season but due to the way they have played and the teams around them they will be having to settle for the Europa League or the Conference league next year.
Also if Aston Villa manage to get the Champions League spot it’s looking set that Tottenham Hotspur will also competing in the lower European competitions, unless the English clubs competing in Europe can wrap up a fifth Champions League spot.
The amount of injuries Newcastle have it will be hard for them to keep competing until the end. They have 12 injuries, these include, Sven Botman, Joelinton, Nick Pope and Kieran Trippier. But on paper they do have the nicer set of fixtures so it’s looking like they should be getting at least 6th or 7th this season. They also have just beaten European place rivals West Ham 4-3 which has put them in the driving seat going forward
The Hammers started to lose their place for European football when they also got a series of injuries plus a few players leaving for the African Cup of Nations in January. In this time they failed to win and only managed to gain 1 point away to Sheffield United. The players who was out were; Lucas Paqueta, Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus, Nayef Aguerd, Michail Antonio and Edson Alvarez. Due to these injuries they have put themselves further down the table.
With Bournemouth’s fixtures coming up their best chance of Europe is if they can keep their star striker fit. Dominic Solanke is vital for their remaining games. The striker has scored 16 times and assisted 3 so far in the league this season, whilst also missing a few games with injuries.
Then there's Chelsea. Although the Blues haven't been anywhere near as good as they're capable of this season, they might just have a chance of salvaging European football for next season if they can go on a decent run at the end of the season. Mauricio Pochettino may also be able to deliver Europa League football through success in the FA Cup.
Every team going into the last few games has every reason to be in Europe next year, but who do you believe will be playing. European football next year?