The Premier League is one of the biggest domestic sports leagues in the world and the participating clubs all boast various sources of income in order to compete to the best of their ability. One of those sources are so-called merit payments, which is prize money paid out by the Premier League to the clubs, based on their position in the table. This season, each position is worth about £ 3.1 million, which naturally has a considerable impact on the league’s competitiveness and in turn, on the Premier League odds every season. After all, every pound matters in a league as cut-throat as the Premier League.

Looking at last season, for example, champions Manchester City raked in £62.3 million in merit payments, while red lantern Sheffield United relegated with just £3.1 million in merit payments. But even when comparing teams higher up the table, the differences are considerable. The top four, for example, were the only teams to break the £ 50-million barrier for merit payments: Aston Villa earned £52.9 million, Liverpool £56 million, Arsenal £59.1 million and, as mentioned earlier, Man City earned £62.3.

So, on top of the promise of Champions League football and the associated tens of millions of pounds, there is also a clear prize money objective for Premier League clubs to try and break into the top 4. No wonder the race for the top 4 is a hot topic basically from the moment a new season kicks off. Being seven matchdays into the 2024-25 season at the time of writing, we are therefore taking a look at the status of the race for the top 4 at this moment, as the Premier League odds are starting to mark the (clear) favourites.

Premier League table as it stands at 18th October 2024

For the sake of this article, we have taken a look at the Premier League standings in the top half of the table (positions 10 to 1). It should be noted that traditional top-4 candidates Manchester United are therefore not included, as they find themselves in 14^th place seven games into the 2024-25 campaign. Based on their historic status as top-4 contenders, we will make an exception for them here.

POSITION	CLUB	POINTS
1.	Liverpool FC	18
2.	Manchester City	17
3.	Arsenal	17
4.	Chelsea	14
5.	Aston Villa	14
6.	Brighton & Hove Albion	12
7.	Newcastle United	12
8.	Fulham FC	11
9.	Tottenham Hotspur	10
10.	Nottingham Forest	10
14.	Manchester United	8

Current top 4

Being seven games into the season means that there are still 31 matchdays to go still, as well. Despite the fact that so much can happen over the course of 31 matches, it’s remarkable that the current top 4 standings very much reflect the aggregated Premier League odds for a top 4 finish as well. Liverpool, Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea are the clear favourites to form the top 4 by the end of the 2024-25 season. Then again when we look back at last season, the top 5 by the end of matchday 7 was the same as at the end of the season. The only difference was Spurs dropping from second to fifth place and Aston Villa moving into fourth place.

As far as we are concerned (and the aggregated Premier League odds support this), something extraordinary will have to happen for either Liverpool, Manchester City or Arsenal to not finish amongst at least the top 4 this season. Or to put it differently: not clinching at least a top 4 finish is enough to declare the season of any of those three mentioned clubs a failure in a large majority of possible scenarios.

Subsequently, of the current top 4, we believe Chelsea is the side with the relatively biggest chance to drop outside of the top 4 by the end of matchday 38. The likes of Aston Villa, Brighton and Spurs have all competed for that fourth spot in the past few seasons, and there is Manchester United still as well. Then again, after a couple of choppy seasons, the Blues finally seem to have found some stability and a steady upward trend in terms of performances (and results) under new manager Enzo Maresca.

The chasers

As we wrote earlier, by singling out the current top half of the table (plus Manchester United), we could identify a group of teams currently chasing the top 4. At a glance, two sides can probably be considered as seriously overperforming over the first seven games of the season: Fulham in 7^th place and Nottingham Forest in 10^th place. No matter how good their current performance is, it does not seem likely to us that they will remain in the race for the top 4 in the longer term.

Last season, it was actually Aston Villa who finished in fourth place with 68 points, two more than Spurs and five more than Chelsea. With Champions League football on the agenda this season though, it might be a bit difficult for the Villans to repeat that feat. If we would venture an educated guess right now, we’d say that the biggest threat to Chelsea’s top 4 spot are Spurs, despite their current ninth place. Ange Postecoglou’s men definitely need to shore up their defensive for that, though.

If Spurs remain uncertain in the back, the fourth top 4 spot will probably be a battle between, mainly, Newcastle United and previously mentioned Aston Villa. Important side note: the Magpies are not active in any European competition this season. The same goes for Brighton, but we feel that a top 4 finish is perhaps a bit too ambitious to hope for in their first season under manager Fabian Hürzeler. Finally, as far as Manchester United are concerned: we know they are Manchester United and there is still a long way to go to the end of the season, but a finish outside of the top 4 this season looks like a very likely outcome for them this season.