Yahoo Sport 
Aston Villa Champions League state of play explained after RB Leipzig win
Aston Villa are on the brink of qualifying for the knockout round of the Champions League following their 3-2 win over RB Leipzig in Germany on Tuesday night.
Unai Emery's side started their European competition strongly, beating the likes of Bayern Munich, Young Boys and Bologna before suffering their first defeat to Club Brugge. After a small hiccup, Villa went on to draw at home against Juventus.
Needing to pick up points, the Villans emerged victorious at the Red Bull Arena with goals from John McGinn, Jhon Duran and Ross Barkley. The significant result saw them climb up to sixth place on 13 points - five from leaders Liverpool, who are yet to taste defeat in the competition.
READ MORE: Two fresh transfer links emerge as Aston Villa gear up for January window
READ MORE: Aston Villa target lays out transfer deal breaker ahead of January window
Here, BirminghamLive has taken a look at what Villa need to do to qualify.
How can Aston Villa qualify automatically?
In addition to Villa, Bayer Leverkusen, Inter Milan and Brest all won their games on Tuesday. All teams share the same 13 points as Villa and are, therefore, in great positions to qualify.
Following their win over Leipzig, Villa had climbed to third place but after Wednesday night's games, they dropped to fifth place. Barcelona defeated Borussia Dortmund 3-2 and closed the gap to Liverpool by three points.
As a result, Dortmund dropped to ninth place while Arsenal climbed to third after their 3-0 victory over Monaco.
The Opta supercomputer believes 16 points are needed from a possible 24 for teams to qualify automatically. The data also believes that 15 points would be sufficient to sneak into eighth place, with that points tally being enough in 73% of Opta's 50,000 simulations.
With that said, Villa would only need to win one of their last two games to guarantee qualification to the next round.
Who is still to come for Aston Villa?
With two games left, Villa will face Monaco (January 21) on the road before hosting Celtic at Villa Park (January 29).
How many teams go through to Champions League knockouts?
The top eight teams will qualify automatically for the round-of-16 while those teams finishing in ninth to 24th place, will compete in a two-legged play-off.
Teams who finish 25th to 36th will be eliminated from the competition and will not have access to the Europa League.
Champions League standings
1. Liverpool (18 points)
2. Barcelona (15 points)
3. Arsenal (13 points)
4. Bayer Leverkusen (13 points)
5. Aston Villa (13 points)
6. Inter Milan (13 points)
7. Brest (13 points)
8. Lille (13 points)
9. Borussia Dortmund (12 points)
10. Bayern Munich (12 points)
11. Atletico Madrid (12 points)
12. AC Milan (12 points)
13. Atalanta (11 points)
14. Juventus (11 points)
15. Benfica (10 points)
16. Monaco (10 points)
17. Sporting CP (10 points)
18. Feyenoord (10 points)
19. Club Brugge (10 points)
20. Real Madrid (9 points)
21. Celtic (9 points)
22. Manchester City (8 points)
23. PSV (8 points)
24. Dinamo Zagreb (8 points)
25. PSG (7 points)
26. VfB Stuttgart (7 points)
27. Shakhtar Donetsk (4 points)
28. Sparta Praha (4 points)
29. SK Sturm Graz (3 points)
30. Girona (3 points)
31. FK Crvena zvezda (3 points)
32. RB Salzburg (3 points)
33. Bologna (2 points)
34. RB Leipzig (0 points)
35. Slovan Bratislava (0 points)
36. Young Boys (0 points)
