Below: final table of 2011-12 Premier League, featuring the 8 clubs that qualified for Europe in the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League and in the 2011-12 UEFA Europa League…
Final table of 2010-11 Premier League featuring English clubs playing in Europe in 2011-12
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On this post, there is a chart, which you can see by clicking on the image at the top of this post, as well as a list of attendance data and a location-map, which you can see by clicking on the image 10 paragraphs down…
From DailyMail.co.uk, 2011-12 Premier League fixtures in a club-by-club guide, {click here}.
‘2011-12 UEFA Champions League‘ (en.wikipedia.org).
‘2011-12 UEFA Europa League‘.
The chart page shows the 2010-11 Premier League final table, with the 8 English clubs playing in European competitions for 2011-12 featured. For 2010-11 Premier League champions Manchester United, I have included photos of 4 key players – top scorer in the league Dimitar Berbatov, first-season sensation Javier Hernandez (who had 13 goals), Wayne Rooney (shown scoring his bicycle-kick goal that won the Manchester derby), and Premier League Player of the Year Nemanja Vidic. If I had more room, I would have shown a photo of Nani {his page at en.wikipedia.org, here}., whose 9 goals and league-leading 14 assists contributed to Man U’s title-run. There was another player on Manchester United who was in the leaders of assists, and that was Wayne Rooney who had 11 assists along with his 10 goals. Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson is shown in a photo just as the final whistle blew at Blackburn and Manchester United had clinched their 19th English title, which surpassed the 18 titles won by Liverpool, and makes Manchester United the all-time most-titled club in England.
The top three clubs – Manchester United, Chelsea, and Manchester City – have automatically qualified for the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League Group Stage.
The 4th place finisher, Arsenal, must get through a Play-off round tie to advance to the much-coveted and highly lucrative Champions League Group Stage. The draw for the 2011-12 UEFA CL Play-off round will be on 5th August. As instituted last season, all the teams who have qualified for the UEFA Champions League Play-off round will be split into 2 sections…one section for champions and one for non-champions. Each match-up will thus comprise one team from the champions section versus one team from the non-champions section. The Non-champions section will be seeded. As it stands now, Arsenal is in the set of seeded teams, along with Bayern Munich, Lyon, and Villarreal, with Udinese as-yet un-seeded. Here is en.wikipedia’s page on the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League, set at the Play-off round procedure, and the Group Stage set-up {click here}.
Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp might not have wanted the bother of it (and the possible damage to league-form that comes with a Europa League run), but 5th place finisher Tottenham Hotspur will be playing in Europe this season. Spurs are in the 2011-12 UEFA Europa League Play-off round {a link to that information is 6 paragraphs down). Harry says he’ll play youngsters, so we’ll see how that goes.
8th place finisher Fulham is back in Europe two seasons after their brilliant 2009-10 Europa League campaign, where they went all the way to the final (losing 2-1 to Atlético Madrid in AET). That Europa League run saw the West London-based Cottagers – an unassuming club with no major titles, less than 2 dozen seasons in top flight football, and a ground that cannot be expanded past its current capacity of 25,700 – take the scalps of some pretty big clubs in Europe, including Juventus, Hamburg, Wolfsburg, and Shakhtar Donetsk. Fulham qualified for Europe then by a 7th place league position in 2008-09. This time, Fulham gets in as the highest-ranked team from the Fair Play table not yet qualified for any European competition (which is another way of saying that Fulham were one of the least-penalized teams in 2010-11). Fulham will enter the first qualifying round of the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League. That means a late June/early July two-legged-tie. Fulham will play the Faroese club NSÍ Runavík. The 1st Leg will be on 30 June, in Runavík, Faroe Islands, with the 2nd Leg on 7 July at Craven Cottage. {Europa League First qualifying round, all match-ups {en,wikipedia.org)}.
13th place finisher and 2010-11 FA Cup finalist Stoke City qualified for European play by inheriting Manchester City’s spot as FA Cup winner. Stoke will play in a Europa League Third qualifying round tie. The draw for the Europa League Third qualifying round [incl. Stoke City] is set for 15 July, and the 1st Leg of the match-ups are to be played on 28 July…here is how the teams to be playing in the third and final qualifying round are shaping up – {‘2011-12 Europa League Play-off round}’. Stoke City played in Europe in 1972 and 1974 {see this {‘Stoke City FC in Europe’)} (from en.wikipedia.org).
Finally, the just-relegated Birmingham City will play in the Europa League Play-off round. The Blues definitely had a mixed-bag of a season, seeing as how they won just their second ‘significant’ title ever – beating Arsenal 2-1 to claim the 2010-11 Football League Cup title…only to fall through the trap-door of relegation on the final day of the Premier League season. In the middle of the Blues’ season, a riot was had. This from the BBC article linked below… ‘Sadly, thousands of Birmingham supporters chose to celebrate the win by charging the length of the field to taunt their Villa counterparts, sparking a predictably angry reaction, with police forced to move in as flares were thrown.’ This occurred in a 5th round League Cup match in January . So I am saying bad karma might have contributed to Birmingham City getting the drop.
For Birmingham City, this will be the fifth time the club has played in Europe, but not since the days of the old Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, last in 1961 {see this (‘Birmingham City FC in Europe’)} (from en.wikipedia.org).
The draw for the Europa League Play-off round [incl. Birmingham City and Tottenham] is set for 5 August, and the 1st Leg of the match-ups are to be played on 18 August…here are how the teams involved are shaping up – {‘2011-12 Europa League Play-off round‘}
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Below: attendance data from 2010-11, and location-map of clubs in the 2011-12 Premier League…
On the map page, 2010-11 average attendance (from home league matches) is shown for the 20 clubs which will be playing in the 2011-12 Premier League. Percent capacity and percentage change from 2009-10 average attendance is also shown. The map shows locations of the 20 clubs.
Photo credits on chart page -
Manchester United…Statues of Bobby Charlton, George Best, and Denis Law from Getty Images via news.BBC.co.uk, here. MUFC fans in green and gold photo from Getty Images via DailyMail.co.uk, here. Interior photo of Old Trafford from CNNconsumernews.com, here. Aerial photo of Trafford and Old Trafford from http://thesoccerwallpaper.com/theatre-of-dream-stadium/.
Photo of Dimitar Berbatov by Alex Livesey at Getty images Europe via Zimbio.com, here. Photo of Javier Hernandez by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images Europe via Zimbio.com, here. Photo of Wayne Rooney from Football-news.org.uk, here. Photo of Nemanja Vidic by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images Europe via Zimbio.com, here.
Photo of Alex Ferguson after Blackburn victory in May 2011 from Goal.com, here. Photo of new Manchester United 2011-12 home jersey – from Transatsports.com, here..
Chelsea…Photo of part of West Stand and part of Matthew Harding Stand by travelbadge R-in-circle s.com at Panoramio.com, here. Photo of Chelsea fans in the Matthew Harding Stand by cyberdees at Flickr.com, here. Exterior photo of Stamford Bridge with hotels in foreground from Ted’s Premier League Blog/Aerial photos of Premier League Stadiums [2009] (scroll three-quarters of the way down the page for photos).
Manchester City…Photo of moment’s silence for Malcolm Allison from PA via YesMakeItNow.blogspot.com, here. Interior photo of City of Manchester Stadium (aka Eastlands) from Football-Wallpapers.org, here. Aerial photo from TheSun.co.uk, here.
Arsenal…Photo of fans with Arsenal flags at Emirates Stadium by World of Good at Flickr.com, here. Exterior, gound-level photo of Emirates Stadium by Lumjaguaari at en.wikipedia.org, here.Exterior aerial photo of Emirates Stadium from ByrneGroup.co.uk, here.
Tottenham Hotspur…Photo of fans with flags at White Hart Lane from FootballQS.com, here. Interior photo of White Hart Lane from Soccerway.com, here. Aerial photo of White Hart Lane by Captain Snaps at Flickr.com, here; Captain Snaps’s photostream at Flickr.com.
Fulham…Photo of interior of Craven Cottage from EPLtalk.com [unattributed], here. Photo of cottage [rear of building] and entrances at Craven Cottage from Into A Far Country blog (frozenheads.net), here. Aerial image of Craven Cottage [facing east] from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Stoke City… Photo of Stoke City fans at FA Cup 6th round tie at Britannia Stadium from PA via uk.eurosport.yahoo.com, here. Photo of West Stand at Britannia Stadium from PremierFootballBooks.co.uk, here. Photo of Sir Stanley Matthews statue outside Britannia Stadium by tothe92.co.uk at Flickr.com, here. Aerial image of Britannia Stadium from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, here.
Birmingham City…Video image of the December 2010 St.Andrews’ Carling Cup riot from Sky News via DailyMail.co.uk, here. Photo of interior of St. Andrews by pinder22 at Flickr.com, here. Aerial image from Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view [view facing west], here.
Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Premier League‘.
Thanks to E-F-S site for attendance figures.
Thanks to Jeremy at Albion Road.com. Albion Road site can be found in my Blogroll here at ‘Football Club Guide’. This summer, Albion Road is featuring these Clubs playing in Europe charts that I have been putting together. France’s Ligue Un is coming up next in this series (Ligue 1 2010-11 Top of the table/clubs playing in Europe to posted here on Saturday 2 July.
