New data predicts Newcastle will now finish HERE in the 2024/25 Premier League

After the most recent round of Premier League fixtures, Newcastle have seen their grip on a top five spot loosen ever so slightly, but not enough to see us drop out of the provisional Champions League spot.

Alarm bells aren’t ringing just yet, and a poor result against the (now) most in-form team in the league is a bitter pill to swallow, but we still have destiny in our own hands in regards to Champions League qualification.

Here’s the latest Opta probabilities on the likelihood of us finishing in the top five this season:

New favourites emerge

According to Opta, it appears that Manchester City are most likely to finish behind Liverpool and Arsenal in this season’s Premier League, with an 86.87% chance of qualifying for the Champions League.

They believe Newcastle will end the season 4th on 67 points, but it looks to be incredibly between ourselves, Forest, Aston Villa and Chelsea; who we still have to play at St James’ Park.

Prior to the weekend, we were comfortably in this spot, but after defeat to Aston Villa, we’ve dropped slightly to 80.32% likelihood of qualifying.

Currently occupying 3rd, just ahead of Pep Guardiola’s side, their recent upturn in form is looking to give them the edge according to the data experts.

Forest falling down, Villa and Chelsea close

From a results perspective, this past weekend couldn’t have gone much worse for us.

Aside from losing to Aston Villa, late goal flurries from both Chelsea and the aforementioned Manchester City saw all those teams gain a vital three points on us in the scrap for European football.

But we’ve each been beneficiaries of Nottingham Forest’s recent decline in performances, something which could get even worse when Nuno Santo’s side travel to the Tottenham Hotspur stadium on Monday night, having already lost to Spurs at the City Ground earlier in the campaign.

Opta predicts that Forest (63.97%) are still slightly ahead of Villa (35.04%) and Chelsea (33.72%), but that’s mainly owing to their game in hand over Emery and Maresca’s sides.

Favourable fixtures ahead

For the Mags, the mission remains the same: finish as high as possible in the table, and that we control our own destiny just as long as we keep winning.

A welcome game at St James’ Park against Ipswich comes on Saturday, whilst one of Aston Villa and Manchester City is guaranteed to drop points as the two teams play each other at Villa Park on Tuesday night.

And as the only team left in the race for Champions League football without ongoing domestic or continental cup runs, we have our five ‘cup finals’ and that alone.

No extra games to plan for, no congested schedule, and a very winnable game at home to a Chelsea side who have only just won their first away game in the Premier League this calendar year.