Liverpool told to ‘forget about’ top-4 finish as Reds given revised target for rest of the season
Liverpool have been told to ‘forget about’ trying to salvage a top-four finish in the Premier League this season and instead look to save face through other avenues.
Going into the midweek round of top-flight matches, the Reds find themselves sixth in the table, four points adrift of Chelsea immediately above them and five behind fourth-placed Manchester United.
With both of those playing tonight, Arne Slot’s side could be even further off the Champions League pace by the time they kick off away to Sunderland on Wednesday, coming up against the only team with an unbeaten home record in the division.
Aldridge can’t see Liverpool finishing in top four
John Aldridge believes that finishing in the top four could already be out of reach for Liverpool and even fifth place might be unlikely unless they hit a prolonged winning run between now and May.
The former Reds striker told the Liverpool Echo‘s Ian Doyle: ‘Liverpool can forget about finishing in the top four this season. For me, any realistic hope of that is now gone. Fortunately, though, it appears fifth place should be sufficient for Champions League qualification, and that should now be the Premier League target for the Reds.
‘The only chance that is going to happen is if we start winning more games. We simply have to go on a run of successive victories to get ourselves closer to that fifth spot. The reality is Liverpool are running out of games. There are only 13 left in the Premier League, and that isn’t many if you keep on drawing matches.’
Aldridge has beseeched Slot (whose job could depend on Champions League qualification, according to some pundits) not to disregard the FA Cup, which now seems to be the Reds’ most realistic prospect of a trophy this season, if they can get past Brighton in the fourth round on Saturday.
He said: ‘The title defence is long over and we need to remain in the FA Cup and the Champions League for as long as possible. We don’t want to get to April and be out of both cup competitions and just be scrambling around trying to finish in sixth or seventh. That is a bad thought.
‘Liverpool’s players need to keep on going and have something to play for for as long as possible.
The FA Cup isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still the FA Cup, and Liverpool need to respect the competition as a chance of winning silverware.’
Top 4 isn’t beyond Liverpool, but winning run needs to start now
While finishing in the top four might be a tall order, especially if Man United and Chelsea both win tonight, we wouldn’t go along with Aldridge’s assertion that it’s an insurmountable task for the Reds.
At this point in the 2020/21 season, we were five points off of fourth place (which is also the case as of this morning) and rallied to finish third, so it’s not incomprehensible that Slot’s team could embark on a similar springtime resurgence.
However, the ex-LFC striker is correct in saying that a winning run needs to start ASAP so that the gap to the top four doesn’t become a chasm by March, and he’s also right in imploring his former club not to disregard the FA Cup.
The defeat to Plymouth Argyle a year ago was galling, but amid our romp to the Premier League, it could be swatted away as a momentary annoyance. We don’t have the same licence to be as flippant about it this time around.
It’s far too early to write off a top-four finish, and Liverpool certainly can’t stake it all on winning the Champions League this season to be in the competition next term, but they certainly need something tangible to fight for once the post-Easter run-in comes around.
For now, they simply need to do what nobody else in the Premier League has managed all season and come away from the Stadium of Light with three points, especially if results don’t go their way tonight.
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