The top three countries have the same amount of spaces allocated for each tournament, yes? So England dropping down to second or third would only affect the country coefficient that each club gets, and not the actual allocation of places.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/s...knapp-wants-man-city-stoke-game-moved?cc=5901 is titled "Redknapp wants game moved." If Manchester City beats Stoke City in the FA Cup final, do you think Stoke City would intentionally not try their best to beat Manchester City in the midweek game after that so that Manchester City would be more likely to finish in the Top 4 and get Stoke City a spot in the Europa League?
...time to dust off my favorite "other" thread... There are a lot of permutations on how teams could qualify for Europe (what tourney's, and in what round's) depending on the results of the FA Cup fina, the Champions League final, and team's ranking in the final league table. It is doubly-fascinating in that Chelsea is in both finals (and could qualify for either tournament through the league), which could play a role in teams' placements. The only certanties are that City and United are going to the CL group stage. Liverpool (league cup winner) is in the EL Qualifying Round 3, and could "move up" to the play-in round by winning the FA Cup. Now for third place (which normally goes straight to the group stage), if Chelsea wins the CL final, third place (currently Arsenal) goes to the play-in stage, and fourth place (a battle between Tottenham, Newcastle, and Chelsea) goes to the EL. Whether England gets an extra bid to the EL depends on Chelsea's placement. (If Chelsea does not otherwise qualify for Europe, then England gets an extra spot in the EL.) ...at this point, I see that there are many many more combinations than I could decipher "on the fly." I'll sketch all these out later. Also, the Fair Play points get released soon. (If I remember, the cutoff date for matches counting towards FP is May 1.) Although, from the mid-season rankings, England won't finish in the top three. http://www.uefa.com/uefa/mediaservices/mediareleases/newsid=1741662.html
Old thread, yes I know... But what the hell... As shown but the actual outcome this is incorrect. The top 3 always goes into the group stage regardless of the CL winner spot being used or not. The access list is reworked further down the CL ranking table to make room for this. Yep, Spurs as it turned out.