Premier League risks losing Champions League place after Manchester United and Newcastle form

The Premier League could be at risk of missing out on an extra Champions League place next season should Manchester United and Newcastle United fail to make it out of the group stages of this year’s competition.

The group stages of the Champions League are changing next season with the introduction of a ‘Swiss-style’ format, while four additional teams will be added to take the number of clubs to 36.

That means there will be four extra places up for grabs, with UEFA awarding two of them to the countries who collectively performed best in Europe in the previous season.

This is calculated by UEFA’s association club coefficient table and an average score is produced by dividing the total number of points won throughout the year by the number of clubs involved.

UEFA awards points for group-stage wins and round-of-16 participation and if applied last season, England would have finished in the top two along with the Netherlands. The Premier League’s coefficient was boosted by Manchester City winning the Champions League and West Ham winning the Europa Conference League.