Last season, Manchester United and Tottenham met each other in the Europa League Final, yet both Premier League powerhouses finished the 2024/25 campaign in the literal bottom five of the table.
Funny enough, Spurs, who were below the Red Devils in 17th compared to 15th, emerged with a clean sheet victory to win their first Europa League crown in 41 years.
It was a truly wild season that saw Nottingham Forest finish seventh to capture a spot in the Conference League, though the best part is that they were in Champions League contention above the likes of Manchester City for most of the season before fading late down the stretch.
With the 2025/26 Premier League season already under way, let’s make some bold predictions. Which big clubs are at risk of being the next Tottenham, Manchester United, or, two years ago, Chelsea and missing out on all of European football, including the Conference League, entirely? Will it be Spurs and United again? Let’s see.
Aston Villa
Aston Villa were sixth in the Premier League last season, but they are already off to a pretty underwhelming start with a goose egg 0-0 draw against Newcastle that was ugly, to say the least.
They then followed that up with an even worse result, losing 1-0 to a Brentford side that is not only sans Thomas Frank and Bryan Mbeumo but is also mired in some Yoane Wissa controversy.
The Lions have holes littered across their entire squad that they have failed to address this summer, and while they are smart enough to not seriously entertain the idea of selling 2024/25 breakout star Morgan Rogers to Tottenham or some other top-five rival, they don’t have a squad of the same quality as the other top-five contenders.
Aston Villa just missed out on a top-five finish last season and didn’t materially get better this summer. The investment is starting to run dry for Monchi and Unai Emery, and if a certain key player or two gets injured for more than a month, the Lions could be in trouble.
Newcastle
So much hinges on the Alexander Isak situation for Newcastle, but even if the Magpies are able to keep Isak against his utmost desire to jump to Premier League champions Liverpool, nothing between these two parties will ever be the same again after the manner in which Isak has asked to leave the club.
I’m not saying that the relationship is irreparable, because we’ve seen crazier compromises and changes of heart in football. But you don’t go through all of this without there being some bad blood, and a club as powerfully-backed as Newcastle rarely end up doing something like this to a star player.
You don’t see Real Madrid or Manchester City, for example, keeping a player like this when they want to leave, and the last club to pull this stunt, PSG with Kylian Mbappe, ended up realizing they were better off not getting into that whole mess to begin with.
Newcastle have a great sporting project going on and have qualified for the Champions League in two of the past three seasons, but they definitely wouldn’t have made it to the top five last season without Isak literally being the best striker in the Premier League, even above the record-shattering Erling Haaland.
The Magpies have a flawed squad, and it might not be such a bad thing if they give up and sell Isak, tumble down the table, and use that as an impetus to build a team with more difference-makers than just the one, Isak, for the 2026/27 season.
Manchester United
Manchester United are the most obvious candidates to miss out on European football, because they were already nowhere near the top seven in the Premier League last season, finishing more than double that number of places lower.
The Red Devils were truly abysmal in all phases, with Bruno Fernandes being the lone bright spot. And now Ruben Amorim has dimmed that bright spot by playing him away from the only role that he knows, the No. 10, in order to accommodate a system that clearly does not work in the Premier League; it’s an even more hare-brained idea than what Ange Postecoglou cooked up for Tottenham last season.
Amorim continues to drop points left and right with a winning percentage at Manchester United that would make Erik ten Hag’s bald head shine brighter and Neil Warnock do a double-take.
Since Amorim’s appointment, Manchester United are playing like relegation fodder, and with how deep the rot sits, the optimism around the new attacking additions feels short-lived already.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2011. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has contributed to sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. Joe’s work has appeared in ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Illustrated. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling, respectively.