The Oakland Athletics designated Kendrys Morales for assignment after Sunday's game against the Cleveland Indians, manager Bob Melvin announced Monday.

Melvin made the announcement on SiriusXM's MLB Network Radio.

"Unfortunately, we had to let him go," Melvin said. "I'll tell you what, this guy, maybe he didn't put up big numbers, but this is a terrific teammate."

The A's acquired Morales from the Toronto Blue Jays before the season. With first baseman Matt Olson returning last week after missing 34 games with a hand injury and Morales struggling at the plate, Morales' spot on the roster had been in question.

Morales, 35, was hitting just .204 with one home run and seven RBIs in 108 at-bats. He had made 23 starts at first base this season in Olson's absence.

He had hit at least 20 home runs in each of the previous four seasons and has 212 homers in his 13-year career.

The earned run Casey Mize allowed to the Clearwater Threshers on April 9 was a bit of a cheapie. Mize got the first two outs of the second inning, then clipped the Threshers' No. 6 hitter on a two-strike cutter. That guy stole second, and the next batter blooped a two-strike fastball at the very top of the zone into center field for a single.

"Frustrating," Mize called it. "I got it in on his hands, yet he was able to poke it over second base."

That was the first earned run that Mize, the first overall pick of the Detroit Tigers in last June's draft, allowed this year, coming in his second start. He wouldn't allow another earned run until his seventh start of the season, which came Friday.

For the most part, minor league stats look a lot like major league stats. To pick some random leagues: The OPS champ in the Triple-A International League last year had a .997 OPS. Normal. The ERA title in the Double-A Eastern League went to a guy with a 3.04 ERA. Normal. A very normal 34 homers led the Single-A South Atlantic League. In theory, the only league in professional baseball where incomprehensible numbers should happen is the majors, because that's the only place where there isn't a higher league to move up to. Otherwise, it doesn't really matter which level you glance at: .300 is a good batting average, 100 is a lot of runs batted in, and good pitchers go 13-8.

Then something like Mize happens. In four starts at high-A this year, he allowed just the one frustrating run. That got him bumped up to Double-A, where he threw a no-hitter in his first start. In seven starts total this year, he has a 0.60 ERA, with 40 strikeouts and just three walks.

Every few years, in one of stateside baseball's 16 affiliated minor leagues, somebody breaks the margins. In most cases, that somebody is a superstar -- a future superstar, technically, but really already a superstar who is merely temporarily misidentified as in need of more development.

We have a lot of favorite minor league performances. Most of them tell a story of a player who has no business being in the league he's in, but the stories have subtle (or not subtle) differences. Broadly speaking, there are five types of farcical minor league stat lines:

1. The mostly meaningless lines

For example: Tim McWilliam's .451/.516/.637 line for the 1988 AZL Padres

The mostly meaningless lines tend to be by players who are older than most of their competition: McWilliam was the oldest hitter on his team, which comprised mostly teenagers. This age discrepancy doesn't invalidate what McWilliam did, any more than it invalidates Gary Redus' .462/.559/.787 for the short-season Billings Mustangs in 1978, or Jake Fox's .409/.495/.841 line for Triple-A Iowa in 2009. There were other 21-year-olds in the Arizona League that year, and none of them hit anywhere close to .451. So the batting line is still data. It's just that the fact that he was the oldest player on his team is better data, assuming (as you should) that his team is rational and not assigning players to its affiliates randomly.

(McWilliam never hit .300 again. He reached Triple-A, for two games, and was out of baseball by age 26. Redus had a successful major league career, as a roughly league-average hitter for 13 years. Fox got about 500 big league plate appearances and hit poorly.)

2. The showed-up-too-ready lines

For example: Roger Clemens' 1.33 ERA in Class A and high-A, 1983.

Clemens was the 19th overall pick in the 1983 draft, and the Red Sox had to send him somewhere. So they sent him to Single-A Winter Haven, where he struck out 36 batters and walked none across 29 innings. That got him promoted to Double-A New Britain, and in seven starts (52 innings) he allowed only eight runs. His combined line: 1.33 ERA, 95 strikeouts and 12 walks, one home run allowed, in 81 innings. The next year, when he was in the majors, where he belonged all along, he had the best FIP of any AL starter.

"Think horses, not zebras," doctors are told, and generally speaking, the advice holds for scouts and executives, too: The guy you draft 19th overall could be the greatest pitcher of all time and ready for the majors immediately, as Clemens was. As Dylan Bundy (0.00 ERA in Single-A Delmarva; 40 strikeouts and seven baserunners in 30 innings) probably was, and as Tim Lincecum (15 strikeouts per nine, 1.01 ERA across three minor league levels before his debut) certainly was. But he's almost certainly not, and you can't know otherwise until you've seen it. So first the pitcher goes out and humiliates a bunch of minor leaguers. We have little choice but to accept that wasting a few of the player's best innings in Delmarva is the cost of living uncertainly.

3. The transformed-too-abruptly lines

For example: Jim Thome's .373/.503/.754 in the Appalachian League in 1990.

Thome, a 13th-round pick, debuted with Cleveland's instructional league team in 1989. He batted 213 times and didn't homer once. He slugged .296. Jim Thome!

So he started the next season in short-season ball, an appropriate assignment, but something had changed in the offseason: He homered every 10th at-bat and walked every fifth in Burlington.

Most future stars show up to the minors too young, too undeveloped, too flawed, good enough to play well in the minors but certainly not good enough to play well in the majors. Then they make progress and move up in the minors, but progress isn't always steady. Sometimes it happens in an offseason. Andruw Jones was already one of the best prospects in baseball entering 1995, with a very Andruw Jonesian .277/.372/.512 line as an 18-year-old the year before. Then he hit .313/.419/.605 in high-A, and then .369/.432/.675 in Double-A, and then .378/.391/.822 in Triple-A -- all in the same year. Suddenly, he was the best prospect in baseball, and one of the best in history.

4. The absolutely-unrepeatable-circumstances lines

For example: Rick Ankiel's .286/.364/.638 hitting line, and 1.33 ERA pitching line, for rookie ball Johnson City in 2001.

Ankiel, at this point, had already been the No. 1 prospect in baseball; he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting and started two postseason games. But he was also only 21, a little old but not that old for rookie ball, where the average player was 20.

He had been sent down by the Cardinals to try to figure out his yips, which had caused him to walk 53 batters in his previous 32 innings (including in the postseason and Triple-A). Again, he wasn't that old, but he was just so much more advanced than anybody else in the league that year, and in 88 innings he struck out 158 -- more than 16 per nine innings -- and walked only 18. I'm not sure professional baseball has a more dominant pitching line this century than Ankiel's.

But even wilder, he also DH'd on his off days, and he was one of the best half-dozen hitters in the league, homering 10 times in 105 at-bats and edging Joe Mauer for the second-best OPS in the league. This was all an artificial setup, both entirely appropriate for the situation and perhaps never to be repeated.

5. The unfortunate-modern-service-time-rules lines

For example: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s .402/.449/.671 in Double-A New Hampshire in 2018.

By May of last year, it was already fashionable to wonder why Guerrero wasn't already in the majors, but of course the answer was obvious: service time shenanigans. The Blue Jays could make the coldly rational, clearly unfun calculation to keep Guerrero in the minors because (A) the big league club was going nowhere that season, no matter where Guerrero played and (B) keeping him in the minors would keep him under the club's control further into the future. This is a new kind of farcical stat line, one that has become far more common in recent years:

Kris Bryant's .355/.458/.702 in a half-season of Double-A in 2014 would probably never have existed a generation ago, because the Cubs would have moved him up three weeks into it. Same, perhaps, for George Springer's .353/.459/.647 line over a month in Triple-A in 2014, when the Astros were holding him back a few weeks to gain an extra year of free agency. Every day the Marlins' Zac Gallen spends in Triple-A -- his ERA just above 1.00, his strikeout and walk rates outrageous -- feels more artificial.

That's why we're, uh, blessed with Mize's line this year, and why he will quite possibly spend the rest of the season (and a few weeks of next) adding to it. The minor leagues are mostly a place for young players to develop -- a good purpose. Increasingly, they're a place for teams to slow their best prospects down.

A player who slugs .800 in the low minors usually doesn't belong in the low minors, and a pitcher with a 1.00 ERA in Double-A belongs on national TV, not MiLB.tv. But you can't predict baseball prospects, and some farces are inevitable. When Juan Soto unexpectedly hit .373/.486/.814 in A-ball last season, the Nationals reacted quickly, and by mid-May -- far earlier than expected -- Soto's minor league performance had earned him a spot in the majors. His original assignment to Hagerstown was a small failure, but an honest one, and it was part of the process of getting Soto where he truly belonged. Unfortunately, increasingly, the farcical minor league line is by design. If Mize dominates the minors like this all year, it won't be charming. It'll be a policy failure.

Some other extraordinary minor league lines:

• Tony Gwynn hit .462/.490/.725 in Double-A (99 PA).

• Howie Kendrick hit .368 in rookie ball, then .367 in A-ball, then .384 in high-A, then .342 in Double-A, then .369 in Triple-A.

• Mariano Rivera had a 0.17 ERA -- one earned run in 52 innings -- in rookie ball. He was used as a reliever, but when he started the final game of the season, he threw a no-hitter.

• Julio Urias had a 2.48 ERA and 11 strikeouts per nine when he was 16, pitching in the Midwest League, where the average pitcher was 22.

Olympic marathoner forms part of 10-strong GB team in Romania

Olympic marathoner Aly Dixon is to step up to ultra running later this year when she races for Great Britain at the IAU 50km World Championships in Brasov, Romania.

The two-time British marathon champion, who has a best of 2:29:06 for 26.2 miles, or 42.195km, forms part of a 10-strong GB team for the event on September 1.

“An extra 8km can’t be that hard, can it?!” Dixon wrote on Twitter.

“Back in November I told a few people I wanted to try for a sixth World Champs team this September,” added the 40-year-old, who competed at the World Half Marathon Championships in 2009, 2014 and 2016, plus the World Championships marathon in 2011 and 2017.

“They said go for it, we believe you can do it. I don’t think they expected that these were the champs I was on about!”

An extra 8km can't be that hard, can it?! ?
Back in November I told a few people I wanted to try for a 6th World Champs team this September. They said go for it, we believe you can do it. I don't think they expected that these were the champs I was on about! ?#NotFinishedYet https://t.co/zAE9stUEdZ

— Aly Dixon (@alydixon262) May 13, 2019

The Brasov event will be the first edition of the 50km championships since 2016, when GB won women’s team gold and men’s team silver.

Hannah Oldroyd was a member of that gold medal-winning team three years ago and returns to the fold in 2019. Dixon and Oldroyd will be joined on the women’s team by Julie Briscoe, Danielle Nimmock and Helen Davies, who revised her marathon personal best to 2:34.08 in Brighton last month.

The men’s team includes Paul Martelletti and Lee Grantham, plus Dan Nash and Alex Milne who are selected after lowering their marathon PBs in recent weeks, posting times of 2:18.51 and 2:20.08 respectively.

Kevin Rojas will also receive his first British vest after the call-up.

GB team

Men

Lee Grantham
Paul Martelletti
Alex Milne
Dan Nash
Kevin Rojas

Women

Julie Briscoe
Helen Davies
Aly Dixon
Danielle Nimmock
Hannah Oldroyd

Britain's Kyle Edmund has suffered his fourth straight first-round defeat, losing 6-4 4-6 6-2 to Spain's Fernando Verdasco at the Italian Open.

Since being knocked out in the second round of the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga last month, Edmund has lost in Monte Carlo, Munich, Madrid and Rome.

Ranked 14th in the world in October, the Englishman is now down at 27th.

Verdasco goes on to play Austria's Dominic Thiem in the second round.

Britain's Johanna Konta will play American Sloane Stephens in the Italian Open second round after a straight-sets win over her compatriot Alison Riske.

Konta, 27, took fewer than 90 minutes to defeat Riske 6-4 6-1 in the first round in Rome.

The British number one beat 2017 US Open champion Stephens in Brisbane in January - their only previous meeting.

Serena Williams is also through to the second round after beating Sweden's Rebecca Peterson 6-4 6-2.

The four-time Rome champion could face sister Venus, the 1999 champion in Rome, in the second round.

Venus faces Belgium's Elise Mertens later on Monday.

Konta's victory on Monday was her sixth clay court win of the year.

Leicester Tigers have allowed Matt Toomua to make an early return to Australia to link up with new club Melbourne Rebels.

The Wallabies centre was originally scheduled to play in Leicester's final game of the season, against Bath on Saturday, before joining the Rebels.

But, with their Premiership status already secured, the Tigers agreed to release the 29-year-old a week early.

Toomua could make his Super Rugby debut for the Rebels as early as Friday.

He spent three years at Welford Road and, despite a serious knee injury in his first season, made 41 appearances for the club.

Leicester go into Saturday's game 11th in the table, but victory could lift them above Worcester Warriors in the final standings.

Every NHL postseason produces indelible, memorable images. Mobs of teammates celebrating an overtime goal. Players finally hoisting the chalice over their heads after years of chasing it. Tearful loved ones watching it all from the stands, in victory or defeat.

But if there were one image that captured the spirit of the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs, it would be this:

Two referees and two linesmen, huddled up on the ice after a controversial call, attempting to suss out what they just witnessed or to conjure up the justification for a specious decision. Players are puzzled. Fans are restless. Confusion reigns.

This has happened countless times during the past month. Sometimes it's after a goal has been waved off. Sometimes it's after a penalty was called on a bang-bang play. There was even one time in San Jose when officials called a major penalty because someone saw copious amounts of blood on the ice and assumed a player had been cross-checked in the head. The NHL had to apologize for that one.

But on several occasions during this year's playoffs, these officials conspired together before speaking to the NHL Situation Room about a play that left everyone baffled about what was called (or not called) and why it was called (or not called).

This entire postseason has felt like a series of pop quizzes about subsections of the rulebook, and a referendum on whether they make sense.

Here's a look at several moments in the postseason that required explanation, and whether we should just go ahead and cancel those bylaws.

April 28: Behind the net kick

Devon Toews scores a wild one from behind the goal line, but it's ruled a kicking motion and called off. Good goal? ���� pic.twitter.com/OtEG3H4G9S - Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 28, 2019

The ruling: No goal. Devon Toews of the New York Islanders scores in Game 2 of their second-round matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes, knocking the puck off his skate, and then off goalie Petr Mrazek and into the net. The officials decided that Toews used a "distinct kicking motion" and ruled it no-goal, leaving coach Barry Trotz exasperated on the bench.

The confusion: Was that a distinct kicking motion? What if Toews wasn't trying to kick the puck to the net? And what if the puck deflects in off the goalie? Said Toews: "I was trying to kick the puck to my stick, and it ended up in the net. I don't know the ruling, but I trust they made the right call."

The rule: We've all known that goals are disallowed "when the puck has been kicked using a distinct kicking motion, i.e. when the player propels the puck with his skate into the net." Did you know that goals could be overturned "even if the puck, after being kicked, deflects off any other player of either team and then into the net?"

Cancel the rule? Were it up to me, players should be able to score goals by any means necessary. Look at what Toews did! Kicking the puck into the net actually required a great bit more skill than, say, having the puck deflect off one's face. But I understand I'm in the minority, and that the bogeyman of 10 skaters wearing knives on their feet kicking their legs around the goalie is an image that's hard to overcome. So we'll say no, don't cancel the rule. He kicked the puck in, by the letter of the accepted law.

April 30: Continuous play

GOOD GOAL! Jake DeBrusk gets the B's on the board! #NHLBruinspic.twitter.com/WQO3JZBiXF- Binge Sports (@BingeSports) May 1, 2019

The ruling: Good goal for Boston. Jake DeBrusk of the Bruins shot the puck and it appeared the play was dead before the puck crossed the goal line. In fact, the referee standing right behind the net emphatically waved his arms to indicate that there was no goal scored.

The confusion: Given the timing of the whistle and the fact that the referee waved off the goal, it appeared to be a classic case of "intent to blow," i.e., the referee ending the play in his mind before blowing the whistle and before the puck crossed.

The rule: The Situation Room initiated the review, and "The ruling was made in accordance with Rule 38.4 (ix), which reads in part, 'The video review process shall be permitted to assist the Referees in determining the legitimacy of all potential goals ... include situations whereby the Referee stops play or is in the process of stopping the play because he has lost sight of the puck and it is subsequently determined by video review that the puck crosses (or has crossed) the goal line and enters the net as the culmination of a continuous play where the result was unaffected by the whistle (i.e., the timing of the whistle was irrelevant to the puck entering the net at the end of a continuous play).'"

Cancel the rule? No. "Intent to blow" is a scourge on the NHL, and any rule that upholds good goals -- which the DeBrusk goal certainly was -- is only a good thing.

May 2: The netting

Puck hits the netting but nobody notices, Panarin capitalizes to get the Jackets on the board pic.twitter.com/2KyTDHE0RB- Heart of NHL (@HeartofNHL) May 3, 2019

The ruling: Good goal. Artemi Panarin of the Blue Jackets scored after the puck hit the netting. After the puck hits the netting, Oliver Bjorkstrand corralled it and put a shot on net, and the rebound slid to Panarin, who put it past Boston Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask.

The confusion: A puck going into the netting and then resulting in a goal would seem like a rather cut-and-dry thing for video review to overturn, no?

The rule: "Video review shall only be permitted on goals that hit the spectator netting if the puck is directed immediately into the goal. For pucks that hit the spectator netting undetected by the On-Ice Officials, 'immediately' shall mean the following: a) When the puck strikes the spectator netting and deflects directly into the goal off of any player; b) When the puck strikes the spectator netting and falls to the ice and is then directed into the goal by the player who retrieves the puck. In both of the above scenarios, the NHL Situation Room must have definitive video evidence of the puck striking the netting in order to disallow the goal."

Cancel the rule? Of course. The puck left the playing surface. Were it not for the netting, the puck would be in the crowd. This isn't like playing Wiffle ball in your front yard, and your buddy hits the ball into a tree and you have to still play it as it bounces off the branches. This is an easy, simple loophole to fix.

May 5: The Bishop injury

Ben Bishop takes a slapper to the collarbone and the Blues score while he's down pic.twitter.com/AFVhPPUCcE- Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 5, 2019

The ruling: Good goal. A Colton Parayko shot injured Dallas goalie Ben Bishop, who was down on the ice when Jaden Schwartz of the Blues scored into a gaping net. There was no whistle for the injury.

The confusion: Why wasn't the play whistled dead when Bishop was clearly shaken up, especially when one considers how the officials usually err on the side of overprotecting the goaltenders?

The rule: The refs can stop play if they feel the injury to a player is severe. Otherwise: "When a player is injured so that he cannot continue play or go to his bench, the play shall not be stopped until the injured player's team has secured control of the puck." The Bishop injury didn't rise to the level of "severe."

Cancel the rule? No. Without the benefit of an on-ice MRI machine, the refs had no idea what the extent of Bishop's injury was in that moment. Plus, he remained in the game for another 33 seconds before getting pulled for "performance reasons," so the refs would have looked rather bad had they whistled down the play.

May 6: The McAvoy hit

Bruins' McAvoy lays out Blue Jackets' Anderson with a controversial hit late in the second period of Game 6

Thoughts on the minor penalty call? �� pic.twitter.com/zSMqrhLOKM- Hockey Night in Canada (@hockeynight) May 7, 2019

The ruling: Charlie McAvoy gets a two-minute minor penalty for an illegal check to the head of Josh Anderson of the Columbus Blue Jackets in Game 6.

The confusion: The principal point of contact was the head, and McAvoy drove into Anderson. The idea this was just a minor penalty was a joke -- this called for a five-minute major.

The rule: Welp, turns out there is no five-minute major for an illegal check to the head, only a minor penalty or a match penalty (which would have included a five-minute major), to which this play did not rise in severity.

Cancel the rule? Yep. This play should have resulted in a major penalty. According to former referee Kerry Fraser, "When the rule was implemented, the NHL Officials Association wanted it this way given the inconsistency of suspensions in this area and rescinded game misconducts that the refs called. We preferred to let Department of Player Safety handle it." Great! Player Safety ended up suspending McAvoy for one game, which in no way helped the now-eliminated Blue Jackets. Let the officials call a major for this rule when applicable.

May 8: The Landeskog thing

Deboer and the #SJSharkspic.twitter.com/PDxwkUtq73- Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) May 9, 2019

The ruling: No goal for Colorado Avalanche in Game 7 vs. San Jose. Colin Wilson's goal that would have tied the game was overturned via a San Jose coach's challenge. It was ruled that Gabriel Landeskog was offside while standing near the Colorado bench door, waiting to complete a change. "I would say it's pretty rare," Colorado coach Jared Bednar said with an exasperated laugh. "In a Game 7, even more so."

The confusion: Aren't players that are changing basically non-playable characters? The "too many men on the ice" rule applies to players during a change that actively play the puck or hit an opponent. Landeskog had no bearing on the play at all. He was scenery. This was like overturning a goal because of an ad on the boards.

The rule: "After reviewing all available replays and consulting with the Linesman, the Situation Room determined that Gabriel Landeskog did not legally tag up at the blue line prior to the puck entering the offensive zone," the NHL said. "The decision was made in accordance to Rule 83.3 (i), 'All players of the offending team clear the zone at the same instant (skate contact with the blue line) permitting the attacking players to re-enter the attacking zone.'" Basically, Landeskog's skate touched the blue line to kill the delayed off side, but then he stepped back into the zone before the puck arrived. Or at least that's what the C-grade-quality pixelated video indicated.

Cancel the rule? No. Landeskog himself admitted that he needed to hustle faster to get over the boards, or be more cognizant of the play. "It's a clumsy mistake, you know? 'Get off the ice.' If I could have done something different on that play, I would have jumped the boards a lot quicker," he said. The real issue here is the egregious, myopic use of the coach's challenge for offside plays. Landeskog leaving on a change had no impact on what should have otherwise been a good goal. Video review of offside was supposed to eliminate the egregious offenses, not have the War Room count pixels. This was less an indictment of the rulebook -- it's further evidence that the offside review is what needs cancellation.

This last offense is a reminder that for all the frustration over these myopic readings of the rulebook and time wasted looking at an iPad near the penalty boxes, some good can come from these debates. The offside video review has never been less popular than it is now, and it takes high-profile incidents like the Landeskog one to rally opinion makers toward its abolition. Which is exactly how we got into this pickle in the first place with that Matt Duchene offside in 2013, when everyone saw an injustice and declared it necessary to correct future ones. Now we can correct the correction.

The fact is that the playoffs are like a magnifying glass for the rulebook. We see what works. We see what needs to be refreshed, changed or outright canceled. Like the Brett Hull "skate in the crease" situation in the Dallas Stars' Stanley Cup win over Buffalo in 1999, which was a controversy so torrid that it helped end video review of crease violations that summer and eventually the entire "skate in the crease" rule. Did it help the Sabres that night? Nope. Did some good come from it? Upon further review, yes. Such are rules controversies in the playoffs.

The Premier League now knows it will be sending Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur to the Champions League next season after they finished in the top four.

Arsenal could yet make it five English clubs in the UCL should they win the Europa League final against Chelsea on May 29.

But where will the clubs be placed in the Champions League group-stage draw pots, when it takes place on Thursday, Aug. 29?

Tottenham might have another reason to hope Arsenal lose the UEL final if they are to avoid Pot 3 and another tough group.

MANCHESTER CITY
UEFA rank: 6th
Pot: 1 (seeded)

City will be in the strongest pot as the champions of England. That pot also includes the Champions League and Europa League titleholders, plus the champions of Spain (Barcelona), Italy (Juventus), France (Paris Saint-Germain), Germany (Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund) and Russia (Zenit St Petersburg)

LIVERPOOL
UEFA rank: 11th
Possible pots: 1 (seeded), 2

Liverpool can only be seeded if they win the Champions League. Otherwise they will definitely be in Pot 2.

CHELSEA
UEFA rank: 12th
Possible pots: 1 (seeded), 2

Pretty much exactly the same as Liverpool, in that they can only be seeded if they win the Europa League. It's Pot 2 if they don't.

TOTTENHAM
UEFA rank: 17th
Possible pots: 1 (seeded), 2, 3

Spurs are the one Premier League team with a bit of a complicated situation. Of course, if they win the Champions League they will be in Pot 1.

However, if they lose to Liverpool then, as it stands, they are going to need some help to avoid being in Pot 3 and the prospect of a tougher group draw.

To be in Pot 2, Spurs would need two of the following to happen:
- Arsenal lose Europa League final
- Sevilla fail to qualify
- FC Porto fail to qualify
- Roma fail to qualify

How likely is this? Well it looks like Sevilla only have a slim chance of making it, two points adrift with one game to play and an inferior head to head record on those above them (Getafe, Valencia). Roma are a point outside the top four with two games left. FC Porto will be in the Champions League but seem set to go through qualifying.

It could be the case that Tottenham have an extra reason to hope Arsenal are beaten in the Europa League final.

ARSENAL
UEFA rank: 9th
Possible pots: 1 (seeded)

Arsenal can only qualify for the Champions League as Europa League winners, which would put them in Pot 1.

So, how are the Champions League pots looking?

It's a little early, but if the top-seeded teams still in contention for a Champions League spot make it through, we're looking at this for the top two pots. There are guaranteed to be three English clubs seeded.

POT 1: Liverpool or Tottenham (UCL winners), Arsenal or Chelsea (UEL winners), Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus, Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain, Zenit St Petersburg

POT 2: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, FC Porto, Liverpool (if lose UCL final), Chelsea (if lose UEL final), Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund, AS Roma

All other qualifiers would fill out Pots 3 and 4. Should Sevilla, FC Porto, Liverpool, Chelsea and/or Roma not need their place in Pot 2, it will be filled (in order of priority) by Napoli, Shakhtar Donetsk, Tottenham and then Ajax.