Newcastle United have four games to play in the Premier League this season, but relegation to the Championship and qualification for next season’s Champions League are still possibilities for Eddie Howe’s team.
Yes, that’s right: next season’s fixture list for the Magpies could involve a Championship game against Lincoln City or a Champions League clash with Real Madrid.
It seems a ridiculous scenario — Newcastle are in 14th position ahead of Saturday’s meeting with sixth-place Brighton & Hove Albion at St James’ Park, and they sit 12 points above the relegation and eight behind Fabian Hürzeler’s Seagulls, so mid-table obscurity would appear to be the only thing that Howe and his players will achieve this season.
But the Premier League confirmed this week that, in the event of Aston Villa finishing fifth and also winning the Europa League, the European Performance Spot — an additional Champions League place awarded to the Premier League by virtue of finishing top of UEFA’s co-efficient table — would then go to the team in sixth place.
With eight points separating Brighton in sixth and Newcastle in 14th, as many as nine teams have now been offered the prospect of an unexpected route into the Champions League. Leeds United (15th, 40 pts) and Nottingham Forest (16th, 39 pts) could also still finish in sixth place, but with both sides still locked in a relegation battle, it seems unlikely that either could bridge such a huge gap and overcome so many sides ahead of them to seal a top-six finish. But from Newcastle upwards, teams including Crystal Palace, Sunderland, Everton, Fulham, Brentford, Chelsea, AFC Bournemouth and Brighton all have a chance — ranging from unlikely to strong — of claiming sixth spot.
This all depends on Villa, however, and both scenarios of a fifth-place finish and Europa League triumph coming to fruition. Unai Emery’s team are sitting in fifth right now, just three points behind third-place Manchester United. If they finish third or fourth, sixth place will not secure Champions League qualification. This is because fifth place has become the spot offering the back-door route into the Champions League from the Premier League.
If Man United or Liverpool finish fifth, they will claim that European Performance Spot because, having missed out on the top four, they will not have already secured a Champions League berth. But if Villa win the Europa League — they face Forest in the semifinal first-leg at the City Ground on Thursday — that would secure their Champions League passport and therefore render them ineligible for the European Performance Spot if they finish fifth. So as a consequence, that bonus Champions League spot would drop to sixth spot, and the Premier League would lose the Europa League place assigned to sixth position, with UEFA moving that to another national league.
Newcastle’s situation is most intriguing considering their recent slump and the doubts that are emerging over Howe’s future as manager. Having lost four straight league games, Newcastle have dropped to the fringes of the relegation battle and are still not mathematically safe, but both relegation and a surge to sixth spot would appear to be well beyond Howe and his players.
Sunderland, two places and four points ahead of Newcastle, are only four points behind Brighton, so manager Regis Le Bris could yet achieve the remarkable of following up last season’s promotion from the Championship with a Champions League spot.
But the most likely outcome, if sixth becomes a Champions League qualification berth, is that we see a six-team battle for that position over the final month of the season with just three points separating Brighton and Everton in 11th.
Brighton, Bournemouth (seventh) and Brentford (ninth) are widely regarded as some of the best-run clubs in Europe, with each consistently challenging the bigger clubs because of their smart recruitment, both in terms of players and coaches. Qualifying for Europe would be a significant achievement for all three — only Brighton have managed that before — but a place in the Champions League would be a completely unexpected bonus.
The same would apply to Fulham (10th), who still have fond memories of reaching the 2009-10 Europa League final against Atlético Madrid, and Everton, who have capitalised on their move from Goodison Park to the Hill Dickinson Stadium this season by challenging for a top-10 finish under boss David Moyes.
But if the possibility of a Champions League via sixth place could become a season-saver for Chelsea, who dropped to eighth spot with their 3-0 defeat at Brighton last week — a result that led to Liam Rosenior’s exit as head coach after just 106 days in charge.
Chelsea’s run of five successive league defeats without scoring under Rosenior saw them drop out of the top five and seemingly end all hope of a Champions League spot due to the team falling 10 points behind Villa. But having responded to Rosenior’s dismissal with an FA Cup semifinal win against Leeds last weekend, which booked a clash with Manchester City in next month’s final, perhaps things are starting to look up for Chelsea. And nothing would confirm that more than sneaking into the Champions League on the back of another English team winning a European trophy.
But that prospect has come into play for Chelsea and almost half of the Premier League, so it all depends on Villa now.
