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The Premier League 2023/24 top-four race promises to be a thrilling one, as England’s top clubs battle it out for a place in the Champions League.
The season gets under way on August 11 and concludes on May 19. Every team will play each other home and away across 38 rounds of fixtures, as is customary in the Premier League.
Which clubs will finish in the top four and which will miss out? Let’s look at the odds before we take a broader look at the battle for the top four.
The odds for the Premier League 2023/24 top four are provided by the bet365 sportsbook, where you can get $200 in bonus bets.
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Manchester City are expected to finish in the top four by the best online sportsbooks, which is no surprise given they have dominated the Premier League in recent years.
Arsenal have a good chance of joining them, as they did last season. Mikel Arteta has done a fine job at the Emirates Stadium, making the Gunners a genuine force again.
By their high standards, Liverpool had a disappointing campaign last time out, but the sportsbooks fancy them to finish in the top four in 2023/24. Manchester United are next on the list, followed by Chelsea, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, and Brighton & Hove Albion.
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Manchester City are the favorites to win the Premier League title, followed by Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United. As such, those four teams are also the leading contenders to finish in the top four.
The top four teams in the Premier League automatically qualify for the group stage of the following season’s Champions League. It is therefore a prize worth fighting for, even though the goal of many clubs at the start of the season is to win the Premier League title.
In previous seasons, the top three teams automatically reached the group stage of the Champions League, and the fourth-place finisher entered the qualifying phase.
That changed at the start of the 2017/18 campaign when UEFA handed more automatic qualification spots to Europe’s biggest leagues, including England’s top flight.
Club | Number of Finishes |
Manchester United | 26 |
Arsenal | 22 |
Chelsea | 19 |
Liverpool | 19 |
Manchester City | 13 |
Tottenham Hotspur | 7 |
Newcastle United | 6 |
Blackburn Rovers | 3 |
Leeds United | 3 |
Aston Villa | 2 |
When it comes to winning the title and finishing in the top four, Manchester United are the most successful side in Premier League history in that regard. Arsenal moved further clear of the chasing pack in second thanks to their second-place finish last term.
Manchester City are still relatively low down this list due to the fact that their first Premier League top-four finish came in 2010/11. They will probably continue to close the gap on the teams above them in the next few seasons.
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The ‘top four’, more commonly known as the ‘big four’, was a phrase often used in the 2000s to describe the Premier League’s strongest quartet: Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool. Between 2003/04 and 2008/09 inclusive, 23 out of 24 top-four places went to these sides, with Everton the only other team to break into the Champions League places in 2004/05. That came at the expense of Liverpool, who finished fifth. In recent years it has become more common to refer to the Premier League’s ‘big six’. Manchester City joined the elite from around 2010/11 when they secured their first top-four finish. Tottenham made it a sextet when they finished fourth or above in four consecutive seasons between 2015/16 and 2018/19. The emergence of Newcastle United as a major force means we may soon need another new term.
It is only in the last 20 years that Premier League clubs have actively targeted a top-four finish. Even a decade ago Arsene Wenger, the long-serving Arsenal manager, was criticized in some quarters for prioritizing a top-four place over trophies like the FA Cup and the EFL Cup. In the Premier League’s debut campaign in 1992/93, Manchester United won the title and were the only club in the division to qualify for the Champions League. Second place only offered a pathway to Europe’s elite competition in 1996/97, and the top three qualified for the tournament in 1998/99. The 2001/02 season was the first in which each of the top four finishers secured a spot in the Champions League. It was around that time that fans and pundits began to talk up the race to qualify for the top four. The Champions League has continued to grow in stature since then, and players, managers and chairmen no longer feel any sense of embarrassment to admit that they are targeting the top four.
The Premier League was called the Premiership for sponsorship reasons between 1993 and 2007. It has been known as the Premier League ever since.
Soccer fans based in the United States can watch the Premier League on NBC, Peacock Premium, and fuboTV. Kick-off times usually range from 7.30 AM to 3.00 PM.
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AUTHOR
Greg Lea
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Greg Lea is a freelance soccer journalist from London. He is the former editor of The Set Pieces, and has contributed to the Guardian, FourFourTwo, and ESPN. A Crystal Palace fan, he is a long-time subscriber to the belief that it's the taking part that counts. Email: [email protected]
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