Premier League race for top five: Man City’s confidence, Forest’s five cup finals – and are Villa on the brink?

The number five is doing a lot of work in the Premier League this week. Not only is the race to finish in the top five the most fascinating undecided subplot of 2024-25, but fans of the scene can enjoy crucial games on each of the next five days.

Tonight, Nottingham Forest play the game they couldn’t fit in last weekend when they take on Brentford. On Friday evening, Manchester City host the Premier League’s form team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Saturday sees Aston Villa host Fulham, while Newcastle make the long journey to Brighton and Chelsea host champions Liverpool a day later. And finally, on Monday night, Forest are back in action, away to Crystal Palace.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side have slipped from third to sixth but do have that game against Brentford in hand. Win that and they will leap back up to third. Aston Villa are the club starting to toy with desperation, now three points behind fifth-placed Chelsea and with an inferior goal difference to the other challengers. That last-minute goal Unai Emery’s side conceded to Manchester City last week is looking increasingly costly.

Opta’s supercomputer now fancies City, Newcastle and Forest to finish third to fifth and seal qualification for next season’s Champions League. Aston Villa’s likelihood of finishing only seventh is now up to 58.1 per cent. That would mean European football at Villa Park next season, but not in the competition they bestrode so impressively this season.

Of the remaining fixtures each side has, City look comfortable (even if the Wolves game is harder than it might have been a few weeks ago), whereas Newcastle and Chelsea have problematic-looking run-ins. Chelsea’s final day trip to the City Ground has the potential to be a dramatic win-or-bust encounter for both sides.

But what is the mood at each club as the final games approach?

To shed some light, here’s The Athletic’s weekly vibe check with club writers at each of the top five contenders, plus a reminder of why reaching the Champions League remains so important.

Who pays your wages? The Champions League does (a bit)

How much is Champions League qualification worth? Well, it depends on who qualifies.

Of the five clubs currently lodged in battle for three Champions League spots, only two, Manchester City and Aston Villa, booked revenue from the competition this season.

Exact figures for their takings aren’t known and won’t be for a while yet, but estimates based on UEFA’s stated distribution model put City’s takings at around the £65million ($86.7m) mark, while Villa likely tipped a little over £70m.

That slim difference was despite Villa progressing two rounds further in the competition than City managed, a byproduct of UEFA rewarding clubs for past performance as well as whatever they do in the current season.

For City, that marked a chunky downturn and their lowest income from Europe in seven years; for Villa, it was (by far) their highest financial prize for competing on the continent.

The minimum earnings of next season’s qualifying clubs will differ; Nottingham Forest, Europe-less since the 1990s, have the lowest prize money floor, while City, winners in 2023, finalists in 2021 and semi-finalists in 2016 and 2022, boast the highest.

Yet while City — and Chelsea — stand to make the most by virtue of their past exploits, on a proportional basis, the income from the Champions League will have an outsized impact on those teams not used to its riches.

Manchester City’s players celebrate funding 27 per cent of their wage bill (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

Taken as a proportion of wage bills, the £30m minimum any English club can expect just from qualifying for next season’s competition would account for nearly a fifth of Forest’s staff costs last season, at 18 per cent. Newcastle United? 14 per cent. That’s quite the contrast to City, whose £400m-plus wage bill in 2023-24 means a similar prize money haul would offset just seven per cent of wage costs.

Of course, as we know, they’d potentially make far more than that. City’s minimum earnings would be higher and, back in that treble-winning 2022-23 season, they earned an English record £114m in UEFA prize money, enough to account for 27 per cent of that season’s wage bill, which was itself a club record in England.

Chris Weatherspoon

How are the contenders feeling?

Newcastle United

Newcastle are edging closer. Had they lost at home to Ipswich Town on Saturday, then panic may have set in — but this Newcastle side did what this Newcastle side do: they won.

Well, they have been doing precisely that since December 9, anyway, because no Premier League sides has claimed more top-flight victories in the time since (14, level with Liverpool).

While Chelsea’s victory over Everton saw Newcastle drop to sixth before kick-off on Saturday, they duly returned to third and have a five-point buffer to seventh-placed Aston Villa. Only two points separate Newcastle and Nottingham Forest in sixth, however, and Nuno Espirito Santo’s side have a game in hand.

Newcastle are back up to third… for now at least (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

Regardless, Newcastle’s fate remains in their own hands, even if their run-in is among the most difficult of the top-five rivals, starting with Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday. The Amex has long been a bogey ground — Newcastle have failed to win on any of their previous seven Premier League visits there and their only victory in 10 in all competitions came in the Championship in 2017 — and Brighton have beaten Eddie Howe’s side twice already this season.

Those fixtures were on Tyneside and Brighton were arguably fortunate on both occasions yet, after collapsing to a 4-1 defeat at Villa in their last away game, Newcastle must rediscover their form on the road if they are to return from the south coast having taken another huge step towards Champions League qualification.

Chris Waugh

Manchester City

It feels like City have done the hard work in their quest to end the season well, having beaten Everton, Aston Villa and the FA Cup semi-final Nottingham Forest in the space of eight days.

Their performances improved as they went through those three matches, and even when there were uninspired periods, City looked far more stable than for most of the season.

City are ending the season with a mild flourish (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

The end of the Forest game did get a little sketchy, which goes to show that there is still work to be done. Wolves are one of the form teams in the league and it will not be an easy game, but confidence has returned to City after a winter of gloom. Playing on a Friday night is relatively unusual, but three more points would heap more pressure on the top-five contenders playing later in the weekend.

Sam Lee

Chelsea

The moment of truth has arrived for Enzo Maresca’s team, who just about took care of business with close wins over Fulham and Everton to keep themselves alive in this race.

Liverpool will get a guard of honour as newly crowned Premier League champions when they walk out onto the Stamford Bridge pitch on Sunday. Chelsea will be hugely helped if Arne Slot’s side return the courtesy with a below-par performance after their wild celebrations.

With four clean sheets in their last seven Premier League outings, Chelsea are defending well enough to secure Champions League qualification. What they are doing at the other end of the pitch is the problem; Cole Palmer still looks lost and goals from the attackers around him feel like rare events, though Nicolas Jackson netting his first goal of 2025 against Everton is a timely boost.

Can Chelsea rediscover some attacking prowess? (Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)

A home win over Liverpool is difficult but not impossible, and if it can be secured, Maresca’s side will carry plenty of confidence into decisive away clashes with top-five rivals Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, either side of what should be a victory over a historically bad Manchester United at Stamford Bridge.

But if they emerge with anything less than three points, Chelsea’s hopes of Champions League qualification will recede quickly and those final matches will consequentially feel much more daunting.

Liam Twomey

Nottingham Forest

Morgan Gibbs-White summed it up best when he observed that Nottingham Forest have five cup finals left to play.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side would have obviously preferred it to be six, but they cannot allow their FA Cup defeat to Manchester City to influence their mood too greatly.

Victory at Tottenham in their last Premier League outing felt like a transformative moment, and if they can beat Brentford at the City Ground tonight, it will provide another.

Are Forest heading to the Champions League? (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

Forest currently sit sixth in the table, but their fate is still in their own hands. Victory over Thomas Frank’s side would lift them back up into third and would lift a tiny bit of pressure ahead of a challenging trip to Crystal Palace on Monday.

In the first half at Wembley, Forest did not rise to the occasion. But in the second, they set the bar for the performance level required if they are to secure a top-five finish.

And with three of their remaining fixtures to be played at the City Ground — a venue where they are far more comfortable — Forest have reason for optimism.

Paul Taylor

Aston Villa

Having been well within the hunting pack, last week felt extremely deflating to Villa’s Champions League aspirations. A last-gasp 2-1 defeat away to Manchester City turned a solid, if somewhat negative, display into a dramatic setback. Afterwards, fingers were pointed at Unai Emery’s general setup, regarded as passive, lacking intent and inviting second-half pressure that left them susceptible to City scoring late.

The change in mood was compounded by Villa’s timid 3-0 defeat against Crystal Palace, which was even more passive and void of inspiration. Villa allowed a Wembley FA Cup semi-final to pass them by, with Emery stating Premier League form takes priority in his mind.

Is Villa’s season running out of steam? (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Seventh and three points behind Chelsea in fifth, there is a feeling among supporters that Villa essentially need to win all four of their remaining league matches. Whether the notion is true is unknown, but Villa certainly need to go on their best run of the season and rely on others dropping points. The fixture schedule is challenging, however, with Fulham visiting and then, akin to Palace, going to Bournemouth the following week, who have lately proven a stylistic kryptonite.

Jacob Tanswell

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