The race for Champions League qualification has an intriguing added dimension this season with the Premier League having been granted a fifth place.

With Arsenal having reached the last four in Europe’s premier club competition and Manchester United and Tottenham among the Europa League semi-finalists, as many as seven English clubs could rub shoulders with the continent’s elite in 2025-26.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the battle for fifth place and what it might take to claim the lucrative prize it would secure.

As it stands

Chelsea are currently the team in possession on 60 points with four games remaining. The Blues, who finished fifth with 65 points in 1999-00 and again with 70 in 2017-18, are a point worse off than Manchester City in fourth and two behind third-placed Newcastle, although they are ahead of Nottingham Forest – who have a game in hand – only on goal difference with Aston Villa three points adrift.

Work to be done

On five occasions, 60 points would have been enough to clinch fifth place in a 38-game season – Leeds in 1997-98 (59), West Ham a season later (57), Newcastle in 2003-04 (56), Liverpool in the next campaign (58) and Tottenham in 2006-07 (60). No side has claimed fifth spot in the Premier League era with fewer than Newcastle’s tally, but Arsenal collected a record high of 75 in 2016-17.

Mind the gap

Liverpool may have won the title at something of a canter this season, but the scramble behind them is eye-wateringly tight. Second-placed Arsenal head into the final straight 15 points behind the champions, but only five clear of the Magpies, while just two points separate Eddie Howe’s men in third from Forest in sixth. The gap between first and fifth currently amounts to 22 points, well below the 37-point advantage Chelsea (95) enjoyed over the Reds (58) in 2004-05, one which was replicated by Liverpool (99) and Leicester (62) in 2019-20. By contrast, fifth-placed Aston Villa (61), finished just 14 points behind champions Manchester United in 1996-97, as did Ipswich (66) four years later, and Everton (72) matched that feat in 2013-14 when Manchester City triumphed.

Sixth sense

Holding off the chasing pack could be the challenge this time around, and on two occasions since the inaugural Premier League campaign in 1992-93, goal difference alone has separated the teams finishing in fifth and sixth places. That happened in consecutive seasons in 2003-04 and 2004-05, when first Newcastle edged out Villa on 56 points and then Liverpool got the better of Bolton with both having collected 58. No club has enjoyed a more comfortable margin than Arsenal in 2021-22, when they amassed 11 more points than sixth-placed Manchester United (58).