(Football news) Spurs may be one loss away from elimination from the Champions League, while Liverpool may see their prospects of winning the championship burn brightly this weekend.
Liverpool’s ambitions of a historic quadruple have been destroyed in the space of a few months, but it was not supposed to finish this way for departing Reds head coach Jurgen Klopp, who will at least leave Anfield with another EFL Cup winners’ medal around his neck.
Liverpool is virtually eliminated from the discussion for the Premier League title after winning only one of their past five Premier League games and collecting just one point out of the last six that were available, despite suffering FA Cup and Europa League heartache at the hands of Manchester United and Atalanta BC, respectively.
Drawing 2-2 with West Ham United and losing more ground on Arsenal and Manchester City was a story in itself, but Klopp’s heated touchline exchange with Mohamed Salah unsurprisingly made all the headlines; an unsavoury argument which effectively epitomises Liverpool’s end-of-season collapse.
Klopp’s third-placed side realistically have to prevail on Sunday to retain any faint hopes of Premier League title number two, as they are five worse off than Arsenal and will be seven below Man City if the champions win their match in hand; a draw here would therefore not suffice if Arsenal sink Bournemouth in Saturday’s early kickoff.
Also reeling from back-to-back Anfield defeats to Atalanta and Crystal Palace without scoring, Liverpool are at risk of losing three successive home games for the first time since the behind-closed-doors era of 2021, but they had reason to cheer on Thursday evening thanks to the failures of their upcoming opponents.
Indeed, Liverpool’s return to the Champions League following a brief absence was confirmed with Tottenham’s deserved 2-0 defeat to Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea, where Ange Postecoglou cut an uncharacteristically animated figure on the touchline as his side were outfought and out-witted.
In a familiarly painful sight for the Spurs faithful, their side’s set-piece weaknesses reared their ugly heads again, as the unmarked Trevoh Chalobah met Conor Gallagher’s free kick to give the hosts the lead before Nicolas Jackson nodded in the rebound after Cole Palmer’s dead-ball strike rattled the bar.
Twenty-two set-piece goals conceded in the 2023-24 Premier League is third only to Nottingham Forest (26) and Sheffield United (23) for Postecoglou’s fifth-placed side, who remain seven points below Aston Villa and now have just one match in hand on their West Midlands rivals.
Because of this, their chances of qualifying for the Champions League will disappear if the visitors lose in the Premier League for the fourth time in a row on Sunday and Aston Villa defeats Brighton & Hove Albion. However, Postecoglou has made it clear that finishing in the top four is not the main objective for his team in their first season.
The travelling supporters, who have watched Tottenham keep just one clean sheet in 17 Premier League games, might feel differently, but the men in white were ecstatic during September’s historic victory over Liverpool, where they were assisted by a VAR farce involving Luis Diaz’s incorrectly disallowed goal.
Also read: Mumbai City will try to stop Mohun Bagan from winning a treble
