England are in danger of losing their fourth Champions League spot in the coming years, as poor performances from Premier League clubs in Europe take their toll.
This season, for the second time in three years, there were no English clubs in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, while none of the english clubs have reached the last eight in the Europa League either.
And with Italian and German clubs performing significantly better this season, England could slip from their current ranking of second to a lowly fourth by the end of next season.
Germany is guaranteed to move ahead of England at the end of this season, while if Italian clubs continue to perform well this season and English clubs fail to reverse their slump, the Premier League could end next season out of Europe's elite.
That would see England reduced to three Champions League places for the 2017/18 season, with Serie A taking the extra place from the Premier League.
UEFA's country coefficient rankings take into account the previous five seasons' performance by teams from each association, which means England are set to lose a huge chunk of their total at the start of next season.
The 2010/11 season saw Tottenham and Chelsea reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League, while Manchester United lost in the final.
Coupled with Liverpool and Manchester City reaching the last 16 of the Europa League, that earned England a massive 18.357 points, which will be knocked off the total at the start of next season.
Italy and Germany will lose a significantly smaller number of points (11.571 and 15.666 respectively) meaning that by the beginning of next season,
The Premier League will still be defending a lead from Serie A going into the 2015/16 campaign, although how big that is remains to be seen.
With Juventus in pole position to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League, Napoli all but into the last four of the Europa League, and Fiorentina in with a chance of joining them, Italy are likely to out-score England by at least four points this season, and that margin would grow if all three Italian clubs reach the final of their respective competitions.
If all three teams were to win all of their remaining games - with the exception of an all-Italian Europa League final - Italy would pick up another five points for their coefficient, narrowing the gap to just 0.095 points.
With Real Madrid and Barcelona still in the Champions League that may not be very likely, but any more Italian success will narrow the gap - and if the difference is less than four points, the English clubs will be nervously looking over their shoulders.
A repeat next year would then certainly result in falling behind Serie A for the first time since 2006.
And even if next season doesn't see England slump to fourth, without a significant reversal in the fortunes of Premier League and Serie A clubs in the next two years, the season afterwards would see England in major trouble.
So if the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool think fighting over the top four is a struggle, they need to start winning in Europe - or it could be down to a top three.
Source:Dailymail.
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