ENGLAND remain in pole position for an extra Champions League place next term – despite the Prem’s worst European week of the season.
Liverpool were the only Champions League side to taste victory, with Manchester City, Arsenal and Aston Villa all slipping to defeats.
Spurs then lost for the first time in their Europa League campaign at Galatasaray, although Manchester United and Chelsea recorded home victories.
But since the start of the new league phase in September, the Prem sides have won 18 matches – more than any other nation – and lost the fewest, those four defeats this week.
Italy and Germany, both with eight teams in Europe at the start of the season, have won 16 and 15 respectively, with 13 Spanish victories and 11 for French sides.
The Bundesliga and La Liga sides have lost 11 matches, with Leipzig pointless from four Champions League fixtures and all four Spanish sides in the senior competition having lost at least one game.
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It leaves England top of the pile at the half-way stage of the initial phase, with a current coefficient score of 9.428, when the points gained by the Prem’s teams are divided by the seven competitors.
Portugal, who only have two teams in Uefa’s biggest competition, are next with a score of 9.2, followed by last season’s top two, Italy – on 8.75 – and Germany, with 8.375.
France, on 8.071, are fifth, ahead of Spain – 7.857 – and the Czech Republic.
Uefa’s revamp means the two nations with the highest score at the end of the season will earn an extra berth in the Champions League next term.
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All teams earn two points for a win and one for a draw but their club and national tally is also boosted by bonus points accrued through the three competitions.
Each of the 36 clubs in the Champions League starts with six bonus points, with the possibility of earning up to six more if they finish top of the eight-game table, although there are no pre-competition bonuses for either the Europa or Conference Leagues.
The top eight sides in all three competitions at the end of the first stage – the Conference League, with just six matches, ends before Christmas but there are two match rounds in each of the others in January – automatically make the last 16 knockout stage.
Teams ranked ninth to 24th are then drawn in a knock-out round to join them.
Currently, all seven Prem sides are on course to qualify for the knock-out stage, with Liverpool top of the Champions League standings, Villa eighth, City 10th and the Gunners in 12th.
In the Europa League, Spurs slipped from second to seventh with United now up to 15th, while Chelsea are romping away at the top of the Conference standings.
While things are almost certain to change, if all clubs finished in their current positions, England would extend their lead by picking up a 4.036 in bonus coefficients, taking the Prem tally to 13.464.
That would give England an advantage of fractionally under two full points – the equivalent of eight team wins – over Italy, swap places with Portugal, ahead of France, Germany and Spain.
Ruben Amorim leaves Sporting on a high
By Charlie Wyett
RUBEN AMORIM would have preferred to leave Lisbon in a blaze of glory after winning a third Primeira Liga title.
Yet football does not work like that. And in what was surely his final game before taking charge of Manchester United, Amorim prepared to say his goodbyes at a half-empty Estadio Jose Alvalade in a League Cup quarter-final against Nacional.
Sporting won 3-1 thanks to second-half goals by captain Morten Hjulmand and Viktor Gyokeres, who scored two.
Luis Esteves pulled back for Madeira-based Nacional.
The stadium will be a good deal more lively on Tuesday when Manchester City are here for a Champions League match — although Amorim should by then have his feet firmly under his desk at Old Trafford.
Liverpool and Aston Villa were both interested in Europe’s most sought-after coach. Even City could have been a possible destination post-Pep Guardiola.
Yet the United job is one Amorim, 39, could not turn down — even if not everyone saw it that way at Sporting last night.
There is clearly a huge split in the Portuguese club’s fan base over their coach leaving at this stage of the season with many believing he should have seen the job through.
Yet Amorim, along with the three-man coaching team who are expected to follow him, leaves a club in a much better state than when he arrived here in 2020.
Inside the stadium, there was applause — albeit muted — when his name was read out before the game along with the line-ups.
And there did not appear to be any jeers when Amorim shuffled out from the tunnel awkwardly towards the dugout.
So, while his departure is hard to take for some, none of the fans will forget his legacy.
This is a club which is back as the dominant force in Portugal. Even this term, Sporting have won their first nine league games, scoring 30 goals and conceding just two.
They are also eighth in the Champions League table, which is one hell of an effort.
In contrast, Lisbon was not exactly hit by League Cup fever last night.
Amorim made lots of changes, which saw Sporting’s star man Gyokeres, the former Coventry striker, start on the bench.
There was, however, a first appearance in six weeks for former Tottenham winger Marcus Edwards.
He is certainly one player who has been transformed by Amorim since arriving at the club from Vitoria in 2022 and will be sorry to see the coach leave.
While he changed his team, Amorim stuck with his tried and trusted formation of a back three.
It will certainly be something Manchester United’s fans will have to get used to over the coming months.
But looking at the Premier League table, none of them will be complaining about the change.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
