EPL left sweating on extra Champs League place after bad night for England

LONDON: Tottenham supporters would have had little sympathy for arch-rivals Arsenal after their Champions League quarter-final exit at the hands of Bayern Munich but they may not be laughing so hard come the end of the season.

Arsenal’s 3-2 aggregate defeat, combined with holders Manchester City’s penalty shootout loss to Real Madrid, did more than just rule out the possibility of an English club appearing in the Wembley showpiece on June 1.

Those defeats also gave Germany’s Bundesliga the edge over England’s Premier League in the race to secure an extra spot in next year’s expanded Champions League.

Until Wednesday’s wipe-out, England were fractionally behind Germany in UEFA’S co-efficient table – the system used to decide how many places a country is entitled to in Europe’s club competitions.

The top two nations in that table will be awarded five places, rather than four, in next season’s Champions League and with Italy secure in first place the battle between Germany and England was, until Wednesday, too close to call.

However, Germany now look favourites with Bayern Munich having joined Borussia Dortmund in the semi-finals. Dortmund edged out Atletico Madrid in a thriller on Tuesday.

Italy are on 18.428 with Germany on 17.642 while England are on 16.875.

All that has huge implications in the Premier League and the battle for fourth place between Tottenham and Aston Villa.

Villa’s superb win at Arsenal last weekend, combined with Tottenham’s thrashing at Newcastle, left Villa three points clear of the north London club, who until recently might have thought fifth place would be enough to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

That now looks increasingly unlikely, and with a horror run-in that includes games against Arsenal, City, Liverpool and Chelsea, Tottenham’s hopes of playing among Europe’s elite next season are diminishing.

Tottenham could end up hoping that Aston Villa win the Europa Conference League as they might be the only English club left in Europe come today.

They lead Lille 2-1 after the first leg of their quarter-final.