The Champions League has been a mixed bag for Premier League clubs so far this season.
In eight Champions League games so far this term, English sides have lost five times, with Chelsea’s 4-0 win at home to Maccabi Tel-Aviv and both Manchester clubs coming from behind to each win 2-1 against German opposition the only victories so far.
The failings of BPL clubs in recent years, and particularly Arsenal this year so far, with a paltry English win rate of just 17% has raised the question “Is England’s fourth Champions League place in jeopardy?”.
Currently, only the top three European leagues get four spots, with La Liga and the Bundesliga topping the enigmatic UEFA coefficients. Serie A, with a recent finalist in Juventus, is enjoying a bit of renaissance and represents England’s greatest threat to their coveted four places.
The simplest way for England to ward off this outside challenge from Italy is to book late knockout stages or possibly win the competition. In terms of squad it could be argued that Manchester City has the best chance of winning the tournament and if you fancy a quick flutter on the league winner they are currently joint third favourites, however they have a really tough group. Manchester United and Chelsea possibly have the most favourable groups but United are just returning to the competition and Chelsea have success hangover. It’s not looking good for straightforward qualification for any English team so what does that mean?
Italy still has a lot to do to catch England up and take their fourth spot so the change in the status quo is may not be entirely imminent but how much breathing space does the Premier League have?
Rankings
So what is the coefficient and why are some British journalists saying we should be worried about it? Well, UEFA’s coefficient rankings are a way of evaluating the performance of the representatives of each European league in European competition. These evaluations are presented as a score and that score determines both how many clubs from that country can participate in the Champions and Europa Leagues, pending some qualification matches, and what seeding they receive once confirmed.
The calculation is done by taking an average from the number of points each club gains divided by the number of teams representing that country. Two points for a win and one for a draw with them being halved for qualifier. An extra point is awarded for progressing past each round and four points are given for taking part in the Champions League group stage. Four more are awarded for making round of 16.
The Premier League’s coefficient for this season will be calculated by adding all of these points and dividing it by the number of clubs who qualified for Europe this season, which this season was eight. For stability UEFA add the current score to those from the previous four years to produce a five year score and that is what we use. Not including results from this week’s round of fixtures the rankings stand as:
Spain – 86.427
Germany – 68.177
England – 65.659
Italy – 61.605
France – 45.749
Spain’s dominance of European competition in recent seasons thanks to the likes of Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla and Atletico has seen them roar ahead and are in no danger of being caught up for a long time.
So what does England have to worry about?
If Premier League and Serie A teams replicate last season’s results then Italy will overtake England by over two points and would take England’s fourth Champions League spot. The Premier League does hold an advantage over Serie A as it has one more club in European competitions than the Italian do so the performance of England’s Europa League teams will be key – as this was a primary source of the additional points Serie A gained last season.
Italy benefited this season from a rather poor showing in the 2010-11 season being wiped off the total and Juventus getting to the final last season and a significant gap was closed, a whopping 6.786 points clawed away from the difference between the two countries.
Whatever happens this season, the Premier League will still have four spots next season so it’s the 2017-18 season they have to worry about. England really needs a solid two years from their clubs to get a bit of a cushion.
With Europa League looking the best chance for success and therefore more points England could be relying on a team dropping down from the Champions League going on a run or one of the existing teams getting to the final. England’s fate may ultimately rest with the likes of Arsenal or Tottenham.
