Liverpool drew their ninth game of the current Premier League season, this time Newcastle United holding them to a 1-1 draw at Anfield. And these two dropped points have severely dented Liverpool’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League next season.
The absence of key players like Henderson, Van Dijk and Joe Gomez have seriously hurt Liverpool’s performances this season and the situation has only been amplified by the empty stadiums. So according to some experts, the return of fans inside the stadium clubbed with a fully-fit squad should help Liverpool get their previous form back.
While these do remain a possibility, Jurgen Klopp has refused to dive into the long-term solutions stating that they will need to sort out their immediate future if they wish to remain in the Champions League next season as well.
He said in his post-match press conference: “Each player in the world needs momentum, needs positive feedback. The long-term solutions are fine, but the short term we have to think about and work on.
“It’s not too simplistic, I know it’s not only because the season is over and some defenders come back we will all of a sudden play again, but we have to become again a very, very tricky team to play against, an angry team in a positive football way, these kind of things. That’s what we have to become again.
“So we have now the chance, now definitely we have nothing to lose anymore, it’s definitely like this because now we are in the situation… OK, West Ham and Chelsea cannot both win [on Saturday] but one of them can win and they are four or five points away. That doesn’t look likely.
“We play Man United away, they are in a good moment, it all doesn’t look likely. But if we play like this, if we don’t finish games like this off, why should you play Champions League? That’s the question. We said, now we had a full week to speak about it: we want to deserve the Champions League, we don’t want to be cheeky and come in somehow, we want to earn it and with these results you don’t earn it.
“That means it’s all on the table, go for it, and now we will talk about it, you can imagine that. But in the moment it feels really close to being unacceptable, but we have to accept it anyway.”
Liverpool face Manchester United next week and this is their last game against a big-six side this season. So, if Klopp’s men can come out of this match with a win then they will have a very realistic chance of finishing in the top-four.
But while Liverpool need to focus on their result, the Anfield outfit are also at the mercy of clubs like Chelsea and West Ham United. The Blues currently occupy the final UCL spot on the table and if they do not drop any more points until the end of the season then Liverpool can do nothing.
