Latest UEFA coefficient rankings impact for Man United as Champions League race explained

The Premier League's hopes of securing an extra spot in next season's UEFA Champions League took a major hit on Thursday night.

Next season, the Champions League format will change with four extra places becoming available. Two of those will be handed to countries with the highest UEFA coefficient ranking based on results from teams' results in Europe during the 2023/24 campaign.

Nations are awarded points for how far each club goes in a UEFA competition, with an average being sought for each country when the scores are divided by the number of their clubs taking part in the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League. More points for round-by-round progression are awarded in the Champions League, with these being scaled down through the tiers of competition, albeit the amount of points for a win (two) remains the same across all three tournaments.

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Heading into the first-leg of the three competitions this week, England held second place in front of Germany. As things stood, the team that finished fifth in the Premier League this season was on course to qualify for the Champions League.

Manchester United have ambitions of a top-five finish, though Erik ten Hag's side are 11 points behind Aston Villa and Tottenham (both on 60 points) with seven games remaining.

However, a far from perfect set of results has left the Premier League's hopes of an extra spot in the balance. Arsenal (2-2 vs Bayern Munich) and Manchester City (3-3 vs Real Madrid) both drew their respective quarter-finals in the Champions League and must win in the return legs to qualify.

Thursday night was a more difficult evening for the English sides. Aston Villa boosted their hopes of winning the Europa Conference League with a 2-1 win over Lille at Villa Park but both Liverpool and West Ham fell to defeats in the Europa League.

Favourites to win the competition in Dublin at the end of the season, Jurgen Klopp's men were stunned in a 3-0 home defeat to Italian side Atalanta at Anfield - all but cementing Italy's spot in the rankings. West Ham narrowly fell to a 2-0 defeat at Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen, a result that could play a huge role in Germany overtaking England in the rankings.

Following the results on Thursday, ESPN reports that Italy are all but assured of an extra Champions League spot for next season - which will currently be awarded to AS Roma - with a coefficient ranking of 18.428.

Germany (16.785) leapfrogged England (16.750) into second place but there remains plenty of time to turn things around. England has five active teams in Europe while Germany has three - although those numbers will certainly change given England and Germany each have two teams facing each other in the quarters.