Aston Villa’s potential Champions League fixtures and projected pots

Aston Villa are tipped to be in the bottom four of the Champions League draw for next season’s competition if they secure a place in the Premier League’s top four in the final weeks of the season. Villa could get Champions League football at 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 in the last fortnight, will have their best league result in years team training. First league.

Villa, if confirmed, will join Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool in Europe’s top flight next season, provided Spurs don’t pull off the most incredible of spells and the Lions don’t claim a single point from their last two games. They will also host Europe’s elite – an improvement on the Conference League opponents they have faced this term.

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According to Football Rankings (@FootRankings on X), Villa will go into pot four with two confirmed clubs already set to take their place – Spanish side Girona and German side Stuttgart. As you would expect, Man City are in pot one with the likes of Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bayern Munich and PSG.

In pot two you’ll find the likes of Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid and Juventus, while pot three is expected to feature the likes of Celtic, recent Conference League opponents Lille, Dutch duo Feyenoord and PSV and Sporting Lisbon . Back in the day, third and fourth in the Premier League had to qualify for the group stage, but more recently you’ve gone straight into the group stage.

Next year’s Champions League, however, will take a different format and mark the end of the group stage. From next season, the teams will play eight matches in the new phase of the league. This new league allows the number of participating teams to increase from 32 to 36 and all clubs are in one table. The eight matches will be determined by seeding by pot ranking. Clubs will play two teams from each pot, one home and one away.

How many points will Villa take in the last two games? Tell us here