7 unlikely teams fighting for Champions League qualification RANKED: Sunderland, Everton… | OneFootball

Two things need to happen for sixth place to be enough for sixth place in the Premier League to seal a Champions League qualification spot.

Aston Villa need to finish fifth (where they currently are) and win the Europa League. Their semi-final against Nottingham Forest is far from a foregone conclusion, but with Unai Emery in the dugout there’s a good reason they’re the favourites to lift the trophy.

The race for the top five looks boringly done and dusted. Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa will be playing in the Champions League next season, but could another club join them?

Sixth place looks wide open. Just four points separate Brighton in sixth and Sunderland in 12th. We’ve ranked the seven teams that are conceivably in the running for Europe’s most prestigious cup competition by how much we’d like to see them in it.

7. Chelsea

Calum McFarlane already has a Wembley victory under his belt, and an FA Cup final to look forward to. Good for him. That’s enough, though.

BlueCo somehow salvaging Champions League football after the almighty mess they’ve made of things would feel all kinds of wrong. They don’t deserve it.

Anything but Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali being forced to comb through some disastrous-looking balance sheets would be an affront to the football gods. They need to take their medicine.

6. Fulham

The Cottagers might have never won a trophy, but try telling Clint Dempsey, Roy Hodgson and Zoltan Gera the club doesn’t have any European pedigree.

Still, this iteration of Fulham? They’re fine. Decent. We’re obliged to point out what a great job Marco Silva is doing. But they kind of feel part of the furniture. Making up the numbers in mid-table.

This team playing in the Champions League would feel like a Football Manager glitch. Kenny Tete and Sander Berge at the Bernabeu? Start a new save, game’s bodged.

5. Brighton

The wild thing about Brighton being in the Champions League is that it would not be that wild.

They’re arguably the favourites of this lot to finish sixth. The Seagulls moved up there, leapfrogging Chelsea with their resounding 3-0 win, and they’re the Premier League’s form team.

That’s a stunning turnaround from a terminal-looking mid-season slump that saw Fabian Hurzeler’s job come under threat. It’s six wins from the last eight, and their run-in looks favourable.

This is what they’ve been building towards. Nine seasons of Premier League consolidation. The model of a 2020s ‘well-run club’; modern-day poster boys for inspired recruitment and building while selling.

4. Brentford

Many tipped Brentford for relegation after they lost the key trio of Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa, Christian Norgaard, as well as manager Thomas Frank. Four names that were integral to the Bees punching above their weight to look settled in the top flight.

This season is evidence that Matthew Benham’s exemplary running of the club is bigger than any one man. Or, indeed, four men. It’s all about the project.

A bus stop in Hounslow hosting the likes of Real Madrid and PSG? Sign us up.

3. Everton

Champions League football has always been tantalisingly out of reach for the blue half of Merseyside.

There was that year they got oh-so-close under Roberto Martinez. And the play-off defeat to Villarreal, only a few weeks after Liverpool paraded the trophy through the city. Ouch.

When we think of European football at the old Goodison Park, we think of Muhamed Besic, Kevin Mirallas and drab Thursday trips to Apollon Limassol or BATE Borisov. Zzzzz.

New stadium, new era? It’s about time that Everton got a taste of some proper midweek glamour.

2. Bournemouth

Flexes wouldn’t come much bigger than Andoni Iraola signing off his superb stint at Bournemouth by gifting them Champions League football.

Not only would it be an incredible achievement, but there’d be a hilarious awkwardness to the whole thing. Surely he’d want to stick around for the mad spectacle of UEFA’s iconic anthem being played at the 11,000-capacity Vitality Stadium.

Too late, Andoni, we’ve already got the next guy lined up.

1. Sunderland

After years of putting up with ‘Have you ever seen a Mackem in Milan?’ jibes from their neighbours over on Tyneside, this would be the sweetest of ripostes.

It’s (almost certainly) not going to happen, but a newly-promoted team being within four points of a potential Champions League place, with just four games left to play, is remarkable.

Particularly when you consider they squeaked through the play-offs and the last six promoted teams – as well as 100-point Burnley – sunk straight back down like a stone.

There are those weird rumours that Regis Le Bris’ job is under threat, such are the lofty European ambitions of the owners. But imagine if he delivered Champions League football. It was only five years ago that the club were celebrating lifting the Papa John’s.

The major issue is whether they’ve got the squad and resources. State-backed Newcastle have found themselves stretched thin the last two times they’ve made it.

The underlying stats suggest that the Black Cats are somewhat fortunate to be in mid-table.

A regression to the mean, mixed with tough European excursions, could be brutal. But even if it were a car crash, it’d be fascinating viewing.