Aston Villa Central

Portsmouth were told yesterday that they would not be allowed to represent England in the Europa League next season, which is an entirely correct decision in my opinion. I know, I would say that, wouldn’t I? Let’s be frank; reaching the FA Cup final is a fantastic achievement and the fans deserve their day at Wembley, but the way the club has been run should not be rewarded with a jolly to Europe.

If I were in any way connected to the running of Portsmouth Football Club, I wouldn’t want the distraction of Europe either. I’d want to take my medicine, drop down to the Championship, reorganise, focus on getting the basics right and then, with a little good fortune, we’ll see them again in the Premiership in a season or two.

This decision means that the top seven places in the Premiership will pay out with European places. The top 4, as we all know, will qualify for the Champions League and now we know that 5th, 6th and 7th will be rewarded with a shot at Europa League glory. (Yes, my tongue is in my cheek somewhat).

We’re currently sitting quite handsomely in 6th place, 2 points clear of Liverpool and, more importantly, 7 points clear of Everton in 8th place. With 9 points left to play for, it would be an absolute travesty if we didn’t pick up the 3 points required to secure 7th place. (2 points could do it, but our goal difference advantage over Everton is +6 and that could easily be absorbed over 3 games with the right results. Or, wrong results from our perspective).

Naturally we’re aiming somewhat higher than scraping into 7th place, but there’s a certain reassurance in the knowledge that we’re practically guaranteed Europe again next year. I’ll follow up at some point with a post about why the Europa League matters to us. It’s still a major disappointment for me that we didn’t get anywhere in the competition this season, but I can find solace in speculating that that failure possibly allowed for greater success in the domestic cups. I’m not sure I entirely buy that though, but we can never know for sure and that will do for me.

If we don’t make 4th place and have to settle for the Europa league, 5th or 6th place makes no difference; both places will join the competition in the play-off round; the final round before the group stage. 7th place joins the competition in 3rd qualifying round. I wrote this last year, which shouldn’t be too far off the mark for this year, but I’ll update it nearer the time if relevant.

Assuming that we do qualify for the Europa League at least, that will be three consecutive seasons of qualifying for Europe which we haven’t achieved since ’96/’97/’98.

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