Ranking the Premier League race for the Champions League spots: Who might Surprise Man City and Tottenham?

Have you looked at the Premier League table recently? Not the very top, where you get that curious sense that Liverpool might actually not be running away with it like you thought they were. Nor the bottom, where Southampton really are running away from it, it being their future involvement in the top flight.

No, right in the middle. Look at that for a logjam. Between Nottingham Forest in fourth and Manchester United in 13th is just six points. Even Arsenal, who would understandably still be looking at the teams above them rather than below, only have a two point cushion over Forest. Almost any team could get dragged into the mix.

Or, to look at it another way, with the league’s halfway mark a fortnight away, nearly half the competition can still dream of the Champions League anthem blaring out at their home ground in 2025-26. After all, there should be plenty of spaces to go around. The fine performances of English sides in continental football so far this season has given them a huge lead in the race for a fifth Champions League spot, a whole 8.9% over Italy. Look, it’s more impressive than it sounds. It’d take multiple collapses of a Manchester City, last six weeks level to let this slip.

The battle for the top five, then, is on. But who will be scrapping for those spots come May? Let’s look at the 10 in the mix. Arsenal, they’re out. If they’re third when so much has gone wrong for them over the last 16 games, you have to assume they’ll pull clear either when their fitness returns and/or the ball starts going in the net.

1. The favorites: Manchester City and Tottenham

Look, it’s pretty horrible. Since the start of the November crisis — now well into month two — Manchester City’s return has been putrid. You want to get a sense of how bad it is? Over the last seven games, Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering perennial champions have picked up as many points Southampton, the team who decided that their own relegation was a price worth paying to discover that Russell Martin’s approach really doesn’t work with inferior Premier League talent. 

It’s bad, really bad, but there’s also a healthy dose of misfortune to these struggles, even if you set aside the injuries and assess City by the talent they’re fielding. Take Amad Diallo’s match winner at the Etihad last weekend. Ruben Dias makes the mistake of dropping a little behind the rest of his backline but scoring still takes a delicate clip from Lisandro Martinez, Amad perfectly adjusting his run, his first touch elegantly lobbing Ederson and a finish that found the gap between two recovering defenders. That is City’s six weeks in microcosm. That and chances being spurned at the other end. 

They might have the worst points return in the league since the start of November but in non-penalty expected goal difference (npxGD) they’re just a little smidge below average. A bit better fitness, better finishing from Erling Haaland, one or two meaningful additions in January: it is fair to expect most of these to happen. If so, City will be comfortably top five.

As for Tottenham, there’s not really much that needs saying. Just look at that column to the right of the points. There can’t be many teams whose goal difference is better than plus one per game who find themselves clinging onto a spot in the top 10 as the end of the year approaches. If Spurs are brushing aside the bad teams and losing by the odd goal to the good ones, you have to assume that they’ll pick up a few more points in that second category.

2. Serious contenders: Aston Villa and Bournemouth

Much like Spurs, Aston Villa are probably who you thought they were at the start of the season. A little bit underpowered at the top end of the pitch, short a few game changers in the deeper reaches of their depth chart after a summer of PSR wheeling and dealing, but Villa’s biggest issues look like they are at the other end of the pitch. 

Some of those might be endemic. Unai Emery teams have never been great at holding leads and in the last few weeks they have frittered away leads to Tottenham, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth. It doesn’t help either that “world’s No.1” Emiliano Martinez has had a pretty disappointing season between the posts, 24 conceded in 15.5 games. A goalkeeper who just made that save against Forest probably hasn’t lost any of his quality, that shot map above hinting at the fact that Martinez has been done by shots like Matheus Cunha’s and Dwight McNeil’s, hardly rockets but daisy cutters that flew just beyond the Argentine’s reach.

If Villa are where they were expected to be, only the most optimistic of Bournemouth fans could have envisaged them ranking as high as seventh. Don’t be surprised however if Andoni Iraola’s side are even higher in five months’ time. Include penalties in the mix and their xG difference of 12.57 is the third best in the league, twice as good as some of the teams around them.

A Taylor Swift-level hit rate in recruitment means there really aren’t that many problem spots in the squad; if Evanilson is having an off night no matter, Enes Unal can save a point against West Ham. Unless you’re unduly high on Antoine Semenyo you would probably conclude that Bournemouth don’t have the guy in an attacking sense like their presumptive rivals, but having a lot of good not great forwards is hardly a great agony. And in any case, perhaps Iraola is that guy anyway.

3. Upper midtable bound: Nottingham Forest and Fulham

Two pretty similar teams bound for two pretty similar spots in the table — in itself an extremely impressive achievement for sides many would have pegged to be nearer the relegation zone than European places — Nottingham Forest and Fulham have gone about their exhilarating starts to 2024-25 in rather different ways.

Nuno Espirito Santo laughs at your concepts of defensive possession. What about defending, followed by short, sharp bursts of possession where his forwards rip you to shreds on the break? The social media age seems to have led to a belief that there is an aesthetically purer form of the game. Go ask Southampton fans about that. With robust defenders and the explosive abilities in the open field of Morgan Gibbs-White, Callum Hudson-Odoi et al, Forest play in a way ideally suited to their talent.

So do Fulham. The cadre of technical midfielders they’ve picked up from Arsenal’s Hale End academy suits Marco Silva to a tee, as does the one man left flank of Antonee Robinson. It’s not entirely clear how exactly they are holding it together so well out of possession now that Joao Palhinha has gone, but they are, allowing a perfectly reasonable 20.48 xG so far this season.

It’s just that neither of these teams have either the talent or the underlying metrics of a true blue top four, (now five) team. They’re fine, batting at about average across the last 16 games. Keep that up for another 22 and one, perhaps both, of these teams will have European football to look forward to. Just maybe not Champions League.

4. I suppose maybe: Newcastle United and Manchester United

Ruben Amorim has arrived with a pretty robust sense of where Manchester United are… and that is not a team that can realistically challenge for the Champions League places. He’s playing his system no matter that the personnel does not really fit it, he is perfectly prepared to sacrifice the immediate returns Marcus Rashford might offer him as he tries to build for the long term. The fact that Amorim speaks about himself being under pressure — “if we don’t win, the coach goes and the player goes,” he said earlier this month — rather points to him being anything but.

United could make the top five. There is clearly talent in their squad. You feel, however, that doing so would be a welcome but accidental byproduct of Amorim being ahead of schedule in his rebuild.

By contrast, Newcastle feel a long way behind where they seemed to be heading when they reached the Champions League in 2023. Was all the defensive magic they conjured up then down to Sven Botman, closing in on a recovery from an ACL injury he suffered in March? If so it’ll be a while before they get back to it. There are superstars in this lineup — Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes — but PSR pressures and poor recruitment mean they’re surrounded by fairly ordinary players too. What does that add up to? Eighth in xG difference, eighth in xG allowed, eighth in xG per shot, seventh for expected assists, ninth for xG. Yeah they’re finishing eighth.

5. You don’t really belong here, do you: Brighton and Brentford

Fortress G-Tech means that Brentford are in the mix for the European places, but the defensive muscle that was their calling card in years gone by seems to have faded. Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa are covering up for a lot of problems further back. They are high grade talents and this side really shouldn’t worry about drifting towards the relegation zone. That in itself is quite an achievement even if it is par for the course for Thomas Frank, who has had to adapt to life without star talent David Raya and latterly Ivan Toney.

As for Brighton, it beggars belief that they are so high. See them in action and they are frequently overwhelmed in midfield, their high line increasingly punctured in a run of four winless top flight games. Their final third talent is as exciting as ever but it has to be to cover for the defense.

Of course, neither of these sides should be particularly perturbed if they drop away. Both are in transition, Brighton in particular still rebuilding the superstar midfield that was ripped out from them in the summer of 2023. Rebuilding while not being in any real danger of relegation is not an easy feat for any side outside the big six. Brentford and Brighton are making it look like that and with their eye for talent, it might not be too long before they are real European contenders again.