Yahoo News Aston Villa's potential Champions League fixtures and projected pots
Aston Villa are projected to be in pot four of the Champions League draw for next season's competition, should they go on to secure their place in the Premier League top four in the final weeks of the season. Villa could welcome Champions League football to Villa Park as soon as this weekend if Tottenham fail to beat Burnley on Saturday - or Villa beat Liverpool on Monday.
It will cap a remarkable first full season in charge of Villa for Unai Emery, who despite the club falling to Olympiacos over two legs in the Europa Conference League semi-finals this past fortnight will have posted their highest league finish since the formative years of the Premier League.
Villa, if confirmed, will join Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool at Europe's top table next term provided Spurs don't pull off the most incredible of turnarounds and the Lions fail to claim even a point from their final couple of games. They'll also host the elite of Europe - quite an upgrade on the Conference League opponents they've faced this term.
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According to Football Rankings (@FootRankings on X), Villa will enter in pot four with two confirmed clubs already set to take their place - they being Spanish side Girona and German outfit Stuttgart. As you'd expect, Man City are in pot one with clubs like Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and PSG.
In pot two you'd find the likes of Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid and Juventus, while in pot three are expected to be clubs like Celtic, recent Conference League opponents Lille, Dutch duo Feyenoord and PSV and Sporting Lisbon. It used to be that third and fourth in the Premier League would have to qualify for the group stages, but more recently you progressed straight to the group stage.
Next year's Champions League will take on a different format, however, and it marks the end of the group stage phase. From next season, teams will play eight matches in the new league phase. This new league allows the number of sides participating to rise from 32 to 36 and all clubs are in one single table. The eight matches will be determined by the seeding via the rankings in pots. Clubs will play two sides from each pot, one home and one away.
