England earned a fifth Champions League spot for the 2026-27 season, and this time it held firm all the way to the finish. The Premier League’s clubs performed so strongly across UEFA competitions in 2025-26 that England secured one of two European Performance Spots, awarded to the top two associations by UEFA coefficient. That meant five Premier League clubs went straight into next season’s Champions League league phase rather than the usual four, for the second season in a row.
Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and Aston Villa took four of those places, with Liverpool claiming the fifth. You can check the odds on fixtures from England’s top division to see how next season is shaping up. The bigger story, though, came lower down, where several clubs tipped to push for Europe fell away and a couple of unlikely names seized the moment.
Liverpool
Liverpool took the fifth and final Champions League berth, finishing the season on 60 points. It was not always comfortable. Arne Slot’s side spent stretches of the campaign outside the top four, but they did enough to hold off sixth-placed Bournemouth, who ended three points back. A 1-1 draw with Brentford on the final day confirmed their seat at Europe’s top table once again.
Aston Villa
Aston Villa booked their Champions League return with room to spare. Unai Emery’s side finished fourth, and even a slip would not have mattered, because they had a safety net: victory in the Europa League final, which guaranteed Champions League qualification regardless of where they finished in the league. A final-day win over Manchester City secured fourth ahead of Liverpool and capped a hugely successful campaign.
Sunderland
This was the story of the season. Promoted from the Championship via the play-offs just twelve months earlier, Sunderland were widely expected to be scrapping for survival. Instead, the Black Cats produced a remarkable return to the top flight, beating Chelsea on the final day to climb from tenth to seventh and qualify for the Europa League. It is only the second time in the club’s history that they have reached one of Europe’s main competitions, the first coming in the Cup Winners’ Cup back in 1973-74.
Bournemouth
Bournemouth’s reward for a consistent campaign was a first European qualification in their 127-year history. A sixth-place finish on 57 points sealed a Europa League place, an extraordinary milestone for a club that was sitting in the fourth tier of English football little more than a decade ago. They could not quite reel in Liverpool, who have replaced Arne Slot with ex-Cherries boss Andoni Iraola, for that fifth Champions League spot, but nobody on the south coast will be complaining.
The ones who missed out
Spare a thought for the clubs that had harboured European ambitions. Chelsea, Brentford and Everton were all part of the conversation at various points, yet none of them made it. Chelsea finished tenth, their hopes effectively ended by that final-day defeat to Sunderland. Brentford came ninth, agonisingly close to a first European campaign in their history, while Everton settled for mid-table. In a race this congested, the finest of margins decided who went up and who missed out altogether.
