Who could join West Ham or Manchester United in next season’s Europa Conference?

Either West Ham or Manchester United will be England’s Conference League representative next season – to begin with, anyway, we could yet see some Leicester-style Europa League dropout join them. Clearly it will be funnier if it’s Manchester United so let’s really hope it is.

Here’s how that could happen, and who could be joining the Hammers or United in what is already firmly established as the best European competition? It’s clearer in some countries than others, but here’s how the qualification picture currently looks across Europe’s 10 top-ranked countries. Eighth-ranked Russia get no places for obvious reasons, which means newly restored European powerhouses Scotland sneak in to this round-up…

England

Places: One – 7th in Premier League

In contention: West Ham, Manchester United

Its first season has firmly established the Europa Conference as a brilliant and often hilarious new European competition. It has genuinely been a great success and three European trophies is the traditional and indisputably correct number to be available. But there’s no denying a certain low-rent quality to the Conference which isn’t helped in England – already the snootiest country about the lesser Euro gongs – by the connotations of calling it the Conference. We hope and believe that was deliberate.

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Now we already know which teams from England will be in Europe next season;