The reality of Newcastle United’s European quest as Champions League allocation set to be restricted

The reality of Newcastle United’s European quest as Champions League allocation set to be restricted

Newcastle United’s slender hopes of gatecrashing the Champions League part next season were dented on a horror night in Europe for Manchester City and Arsenal last night.

The chances of fifth place becoming a Champions League slot for English clubs are all but over after Bayern Munich knocked out Arsenal in the quarter-finals thanks to a 1-0 win in Germany. Manchester City’s defeat to Real Madrid on penalties hardly helped but in a week that saw Borussia Dortmund and Bayern progress to the semi-finals, Germany’s UEFA coefficient ranking has nudged up to 17.642.

Man City’s game against Real Madrid counts as a draw in coefficient terms but England sit on 16.875 and behind Germany while Italy is still out in front with Atalanta, AC Milan, Roma and Fiorentina still in European competitions. It is all over bar the shouting unless Liverpool and West Ham can overturn deficits in their Europa League games against Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen this evening.

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Aston Villa could be left flying the flag for England in their Europa Conference League tie against Lille and they go into tonight’s clash with a 2-1 lead. The coefficient figures from previous seasons would have been enough to get the Premier League fifth spot this term, but both Newcastle and Manchester United’s group exits have hauled the points tally down for England.

It leaves Newcastle with the very difficult task of chasing down fourth place, currently held by Villa, with a 13-point gap to make up in the last six matches. Eddie Howe’s team can still reach 68 points this season which is a tally that would have been good enough to get fourth in 2021, 2020 and 2016.

But Villa are within touching distance of securing that fourth place spot leaving Newcastle to nail down a Europa League or Europa Conference League spot. The Magpies must also wait to see who wins the FA Cup because if the winner does not qualify for Europe via the league they will take one of the Europa League spots.

View news Source: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/reality-newcastle-uniteds-european-quest-29016501

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