By Opta Analyst | Created at 2025-03-27 15:12:10 | Updated at 2025-04-05 03:02:14
1 week ago
The battle to qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League is hotting up, and the chance of an extra spot in the competition will give clubs even more hope. Can Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth spring a surprise? We look at the Opta supercomputer projections.
17 March
What a weekend it turned out to be for Nottingham Forest. Nuno Espírito Santo’s side backed up their impressive Matchday 28 victory over Manchester City with another statement performance, beating Ipswich Town 4-2.
Crucially, the result gives Forest valuable breathing room in the race for a top-five finish. They now sit five points clear of Chelsea in fourth place, following the Blues’ defeat to Arsenal.
Elsewhere, Manchester City and Brighton played out a draw, while neither Newcastle United nor Aston Villa were in action. Bournemouth’s poor run continued with a 2-1 home loss to Brentford. In fact, Fulham were the only other top-half side – aside from second-place Arsenal – to win on Matchday 29.
Forest’s win takes their Premier League points tally for the 2024-25 season to 54 from 29 matches. And, given the revelation last week that fifth spot in the Premier League is almost certain to be enough for Champions League qualification, that points haul has major significance.
Only four sides in Premier League history have failed to finish in the top five after amassing 54 or more points from their first 29 games: Newcastle United in 1994-95, Liverpool in 2014-15, and Manchester United in both 2016-17 and 2018-19 – all of whom ended the campaign in sixth.
Given that just one English team needs to win one single match in the remaining European knockout rounds to confirm that fifth place will qualify for the Champions League, we can now start to shift focus purely to the race for the top five.
According to the Opta supercomputer, Forest are now favourites to secure a top-five finish, doing so in 85.6% of simulations – ahead of Manchester City (78.4%) and Newcastle United (52.3%), who still have a game in hand and will be buoyed by their recent League Cup triumph.
Chelsea, who face one of the toughest run-ins, have seen their top-five chances fall to 48.4% following their loss at the Emirates.
Brighton’s strong recent form sees them break into the top five in 20.1% of Opta simulations, while Aston Villa, Bournemouth and Fulham all retain slim hopes of sneaking in there.
To highlight just how tight the race remains, even teams currently as low as 14th (Manchester United) finished fifth in at least one of the 10,000 Opta supercomputer simulations.
11 March
Since our last update of the battle for Champions League football in the Premier League, the title tussle has turned into a one-horse race and the bottom three have been left six points adrift of safety, so jeopardy and interest isn’t exactly coursing through the table.
Thankfully, the fight for the top four (or five!) is very much alive and giving us something to at least get a little excited about.
Monday’s solitary game between West Ham and Newcastle impacted the scrap as well, with Eddie Howe’s men sneaking a 1-0 win at the London Stadium to go sixth on 47 points, level with Manchester City.
As it stands, just seven points separate ninth-placed Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest in third; with most of those in between having 10 games left (Aston Villa have nine to go), there’s still time for prospects to change as well.
After Newcastle’s win on Monday, their top-four chances stand at 25.5%. In the Opta supercomputer’s latest 10,000 simulations, their most frequent final position was fifth, so they are slight outsiders.
Manchester City lost again on Saturday, going down 1-0 to Nottingham Forest, so that’ll have had an impact on both teams’ chances.
City still finish in the top four in 66.7% of the simulations, though – two-thirds of the time – which is actually the most of all clubs bar the top two. Forest secure a top-four finish in 54.2% of the sims, which is up from 41.7% in our previous update.
Of those currently in the top four, Chelsea are deemed to be the likeliest to drop out, only holding on to an automatic Champions League qualification spot in 36% of the season projections.
No other team is given more than an 8.6% chance of finishing in the top four places, though Brighton, Villa, Bournemouth and Fulham all managed to in at least one of the 10,000 simulations.
Of course, there’s a strong chance fifth is a route into the Champions League as well.
If English clubs do well in Europe, the Premier League will earn a fifth automatic ticket to next season’s league phase. According to the latest projections, there’s more than a 99.9% chance that occurring.
So, while the current top four and City all have at least a 57.6% of finishing fifth or higher, the outlook of those a little further down obviously improves as well.
Brighton finished in the top five in 18.9% of the sims, while Bournemouth did so in 14.7%. Both teams would’ve taken those odds with 10 games left at the start of the season.
There were even single instances in the 10,000 simulations of Tottenham and Manchester United finishing fifth. If anything, though, their numbers just accentuate how little chance those two really have of an extremely unlikely recovery in the final 10 games of the campaign.
24 February
With just five points separating third-place Nottingham Forest and eighth-place Aston Villa, the race for Champions League qualification remains incredibly tight.
This weekend saw a series of top-of-the-table clashes, with six of the top eight meeting.
Liverpool underlined their dominance by brushing aside Manchester City, Newcastle edged a seven-goal thriller against Forest, and Aston Villa came from behind to beat Chelsea. But how have those results impacted the battle for Champions League qualification, according to the Opta supercomputer?
Liverpool have already sealed their place in next season’s competition, with their focus now firmly on winning the title. Technically, it’s still possible for them to drop out of the Champions League spots, but that’s something that did not happen even once across 10,000 supercomputer simulations.
Arsenal, despite their shock 1-0 defeat to West Ham, are also virtually assured of a top-four finish, with the Opta supercomputer giving them a 99.6% chance of qualification.
After their defeat to Liverpool, Manchester City still have the strongest chance of Champions League qualification among the chasing pack at 75.8%. Since Christmas, Pep Guardiola’s side have certainly turned a corner, with only Liverpool (27) scoring more goals than them (23) and just Liverpool (25), Arsenal (20), and Newcastle (18) earning more points than their 17 in that period.
Newcastle’s dramatic 4-3 win over Nottingham Forest gave Eddie Howe’s men a crucial boost in the race. Forest (41.7%) still hold a slight edge over Newcastle (32.6%) though, thanks to their three-point lead over the Magpies.
Just behind them, Bournemouth and Chelsea sit level on points in sixth and seventh place. The Opta supercomputer has those two sides flipped in its forecast, however, with Chelsea (26.1%) given a better chance than Bournemouth (16.7%) of finishing in the top four. Both sides have lost two of their last three games, denting their push for the top four.
Aston Villa’s win over Chelsea could become pivotal down the line, but they remain outsiders for Champions League qualification (3.2%), while Brighton (3.2%) have given themselves an outside shot after winning their last two games by a combined score of 7-0.
However, the truthful outlook for all these sides is even rosier than these numbers suggest. Given English clubs’ performances in Europe this season, it looks likely that the top five will qualify for next season’s Champions League, rather than the traditional top four.
The Opta supercomputer is extremely confident (99.4%) that England will secure an additional spot in next year’s competition, thanks to six English teams still competing in European competitions. Two of them are favourites to win their respective tournaments, with others expected to go deep.
If that fifth Champions League spot is confirmed, the picture changes significantly. The chances for Nottingham Forest (62.7%) and Newcastle (53.3%) both jump up considerably, as do Chelsea (44.9%) and Bournemouth (32.4%).
17 February
The race for Champions League qualification from the Premier League is getting interesting, even if two of the spots look to be decided – in the Opta supercomputer’s eyes at least.
It looks likely to be a race for five places rather than the usual four, as the supercomputer is massively confident in English clubs’ chances of the success they need to be one of the top two performing countries in continental competition across 2024-25. That would earn an extra spot in next season’s Champions League.
As it stands, England’s chances of getting an extra spot in next season’s league phase are very strong. The Opta supercomputer projects a 98.9% likelihood of this happening, with all seven of the English teams still in Europe and two of them the favourites for European glory.
Liverpool are favourites for the Champions League with Arsenal the second-likeliest winners, and Chelsea win the Conference League most often in our projections. What’s more, in the Europa League, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United are among the four likeliest winners.
Liverpool now only need 22 points from their final 13 games of the season to guarantee a top-four finish – an average of 1.69 points per game or, more simply, seven wins and a draw. That’s based on Bournemouth or Chelsea winning all of their remaining 13 games, too, which feels unlikely.
There is also a 10-point gap between Arsenal in second place and Chelsea and Bournemouth in fifth and sixth positions. That’s enough for the Opta supercomputer to be hugely confident of Arsenal making the Champions League qualification spots.
To be clear, the supercomputer is not saying it’s mathematically impossible for Arsenal to finish outside the top five, it’s just that across 10,000 simulations today, Mikel Arteta’s side didn’t finish outside those positions once. They finished outside the top four in only 14 of the 10,000 season simulations.
Manchester City’s excellent win against Newcastle has seen their hopes of a top-five finish boosted to 89.9%, making them the third most likely club to qualify for the Champions League next season.
At the start of 2024-25, nobody would have been shocked if you’d told them Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City would qualify for the Champions League next season. But there would have been real surprise if you’d said that one of Nottingham Forest or Bournemouth would make it too.
With it seemingly now a battle to finish in the top five rather than top four places of the Premier League table, Forest are in a brilliant position to achieve the unthinkable. Despite a 2-1 loss at Fulham on Saturday, they still finish in the top five in 61.6% of the 10,000 supercomputer simulations.
Bournemouth’s latest win – hardly a shock against bottom side Southampton – sees their current projections for a top-five finish at 51.8%. It’s been such a brilliant season for the Cherries that they only need five points from their remaining 13 games to equal their highest ever points tally in a Premier League season (48, last season).
They have been helped by Chelsea’s loss of form. The Blues’ latest defeat came in a 4-0 rout at the hands of Brighton on Friday night, and they have now won just nine points in their last nine games – half the tally of Bournemouth (18) in that period and 10 fewer than Forest (19).
Enzo Maresca’s side secure a top-four finish in 31.5% of current simulations, with a finish in the top five occurring 53.0% of the time.
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