Can a Lack of European Football Help Man Utd and Brighton to New Heights in the EPL?

At the end of the 2023/24 season, Aston Villa finished fourth in the Premier League table; securing their first tilt at the Champions League since that competition’s rebrand from the European Cup.

That same campaign, Tottenham and Manchester United finished fifth and eighth, which ensured their passage into the following season’s Europa League.

Each of that trio performed admirably in their continental endeavours, but in the Premier League their drop-off was stark: Villa sunk from fourth to sixth, not a huge drop numerically, but in the context of missing out on Champions League football, the chasm is monumental.

Manchester United and Tottenham, meanwhile, plummeted to fifteenth and seventeenth in the Premier League respectively. Had the relegated trio not been so derisory, Spurs’ unabashed 30+ year stay in the top flight could have been under threat.

These aren’t the only cautionary tales of European football, either. From 2021/22 to 2022/23, Chelsea fell from third to twelfth and West Ham from seventh to fourteenth… both were embroiled in energy-sapping continental campaigns.

From 2022/23 to 2023/24, Newcastle slumped from fourth to seventh and Brighton from sixth to eleventh… make no mistake, their participation in European football was a major factor in their regression.

So what does that mean for the 2025/26 vintage? The big clubs, your Liverpools, your Arsenals, your Manchester Citys, are immune to this phenomenon because their squad depth allows them to compete on multiple fronts.

And Chelsea, with their humongous squad, could probably name three different starting elevens on any given day.

But what about Aston Villa… whose cost cutting exercise, given their PSR fears, has seen them pass up the chance to sign Marcus Rashford, Marco Asensio and Axel Disasi permanently?

And how about Nottingham Forest? Their first continental campaign in decades will see them play Thursday-Sunday with regularity… do they have the squad depth to cope with such rigours?

Similar accusations can even be thrown at Newcastle United, whose starting eleven is outstanding… but is their squad depth where it needs to be to challenge on multiple fronts? At the time of writing, it seems a certainty that top goalscorer Alexander Isak will be leaving, weakening the Magpies to some tune. 

All of which is a round-a-bout way of saying that there could be vacancies in the top eight, or possibly even the top six, of the Premier League table this term. But who will take advantage?

Perhaps a lack of European football could be an unexpected advantage for Manchester United and Brighton…

Predicting the Unpredictable 

If pressed to give a definitive answer on where you expect Manchester United to finish in the Premier League this season, you suspect the answers would range anywhere from sixth to, say, fifteenth.

The club has problems, which – at the time of writing at least – they haven’t solved. They lost 18 Premier League games last term, conceding 54 goals. But have they reinforced their defensive ranks in the transfer window? Absolutely not.

But what they have done, presumably, is improve in an attacking sense. Last season, they scored just 44 Premier League goals – only the relegated trio and Everton netted less. 

So in come Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha for a combined fee of £130 million. Last season, they recorded 28 and 21 Premier League goal involvements respectively and although never an exact science, if the duo can get anywhere close to that output then United will improve significantly.

There are dangers to signing a pair of players that significantly outperformed their xG tallies; are they brilliant finishers, or was there an element of unsustainable good fortune to their 2024/25 campaigns? We’ll certainly find out in the months ahead.

Doubts may also remain about Ruben Amorim’s suitability to coach in the Premier League; particularly his steadfast refusal to alter his preferred 3-4-2-1 formation. How do Mbeumo, Cunha and Bruno Fernandes fit together? And do United have three fit and viable centre backs to fill those roles?

The key difference this term is that the Red Devils won’t have a European campaign to navigate. Instead, just 38 Premier League games – as well as any played in the domestic cups – await. That should help to keep key players fresh… therefore, a significant uptick in 2025/26 can be expected, although predicting United’s final finishing position remains fraught with risk.

Seagulls Flying High

Perhaps easier to predict is the progression of Brighton, who remain one of the best ran clubs in English football.

Owner Tony Bloom and his army of data analysts have turned the Seagulls into a Premier League force, despite a budget and infrastructure that suggests they really ought to be a regular fixture at the wrong end of the table.

Since the start of the 2021/22 season, Brighton have finished ninth, sixth, eleventh and eighth in the Premier League table. Can you guess what happened during that eleventh-place campaign? That’s right: they were competing in the Europa League.

Without continental football, the Seagulls have been top-ten regulars. And even last term, despite finishing eighth, they were just five points behind Newcastle in fifth.

One of the factors behind their continued success is their effective work in the transfer market, which is powered by Bloom’s data-led vision. So when assessing their chances in 2025/26, we may look at signings like Charalampos Kostoulas, Maxim De Cuyper and Diego Coppola and feel underwhelmed… the average English football fan simply won’t have heard of those players.

But such is the success rate of Brighton in the market, it would be no surprise if some or all of those players turn out to be stars in the making.

The sale of Joao Pedro, Pervis Estupinan and, to a lesser extent, Simon Adingra will hurt the south coast club. But this is Bloom’s model: that trio, combined, have banked the club a net profit of £40 million.

Evolution, rather than revolution, is the way at Brighton. Having finished five points behind fifth place in 2025/26, few would be surprised if they went on and gate-crashed the Champions League places this time around. 

Whether they have to battle Manchester United for a top-five finish remains to be seen…

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