Only a huge Liverpool risk will be enough to secure Champions League football

There’s no sugar-coating it, Liverpool haven’t had a very good season.

From the thrills and spills (and eventual bellyaches) of chasing down an unprecedented quadruple, to the abject misery of defeats to Brentford, Brighton, Wolves and Bournemouth, the drop-off has been nothing short of spectacular, just months after appearing immortal.

Last May, the Reds were 90 minutes from lifting their seventh European Cup, now they face an uphill struggle just to qualify for next season’s competition. But despite this alarming fall from grace, Jurgen Klopp’s team still have a chance of qualifying for another season of Champions League football, if they can rediscover the secret to the consistency required to get the job over the line.

It’s not like this current campaign has not had its memorable moments. Amid those embarrassing defeats is a 9-0 win against Bournemouth, a morale-boosting victory against English champions Manchester City and a remarkable 7-0 triumph over old foe Manchester United that could quite rightly take its place in the top drawer of Anfield’s finest conquests. Too bad it was immediately followed by a 1-0 loss against the bottom-of-the-league Cherries.

With a limp exit from the Champions League confirmed by Real Madrid, the international break has given Klopp and his players plenty of time to stew over this season’s short-comings.

But when their Premier League schedule resumes this Saturday on April Fool’s Day, the level of opponent Liverpool will face is no joke. Manchester City are the opposition and having suffered a 1-0 loss at Anfield earlier in the season, Pep Guardiola’s side will be hell-bent on getting one over their self-appointed modern-day rivals.

Get through that one and the Reds are back on the road, this time in West London, as they make their way to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea. The capital outfit have managed to surpass their Merseyside rivals by having an even worse season. Currently 10th in the table, Graham Potter’s side face a battle to even make it into Europe, let alone the Champions League.

But with that comes a greater desire to win the big matches like this one, as players and supporters look to salvage something out of a wretched season.

If those two fixtures looked difficult enough, the third and final instalment is at least at Anfield, but against the league leaders Arsenal. Mikel Arteta’s men have been in scintillating form and the power of the Anfield effect will need to be at its strongest if the hosts are to get a positive result.

As difficult as that trio of matches may seem, the simple fact of the matter is that if Liverpool don’t get some decent results out of them, their top-four aspirations will be going up in smoke.

But what would represent a good return from those three matches? In reality, it is purely a matter of maths and a look back at what it really takes to qualify for the Champions League historically.

Last season, Tottenham Hotspur finished fourth in the table with 71 points. That’s an average of 1.86 per match. Up to this point, the Reds are averaging 1.61 points per match – simply not good enough to make it into the Champions League qualification places. The season before, it was Chelsea who finished fourth with a more modest 67 points in a Covid-hit season. That’s an average of 1.76.

The year before that, when Klopp ended Anfield’s 30-year wait for a league title, Manchester United and Chelsea finished third and fourth respectively on the same tally of 66 points – an average of 1.73 per game.

Keeping in mind that Liverpool are still seven points adrift of fourth-placed Tottenham (albeit with two games in hand) and five behind Newcastle United having played the same amount of games, it is clear that an improvement above the average points tally is required to make in-roads.

And that leads to a baseline target for the rest of the season of at least two points per game. If the Reds can achieve an average of two points per game in their remaining 12 matches, they will finish on 66 points and will at least be in with a shout of qualifying for next season’s Champions League.

Yet even with that uplift, it remains a tall order. Looking back over the past eight seasons, only twice has 66 points been enough to finish fourth. Manchester City did just that at the end of the 2015-16 season and – as referenced above – so did Chelsea in 2019-20 before repeating the feat with 67 points the following season. Liverpool beating Tottenham has probably got to happen for the Reds to catch the currently managerless North London club, however, they can cross that hurdle when they get to it.

But what does it all mean for Liverpool’s next three very tricky fixtures? In short, fortune favours the brave. The Reds need to win matches, not draw them, even if that means risking defeat. A win and two draws against Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal may sound like a decent enough return, but not if you’re going to lose at Brentford and Bournemouth.

The reality is that the Reds can afford to lose one of those three matches providing that they can win the other two. In matches against the teams currently in the top five this season, Klopp’s side have taken 15 points from seven matches – an average of, wait for it, of 2.14 per game!

That data should give the German all the confidence he needs to know that his stuttering team can pull a couple of victories out of the bag when it matters most and if one of them falls by the wayside for the greater good, so be it.

Two wins and a loss will give Liverpool a two points per game average and put them back on course to hunt down Spurs and Eddie Howe’s Magpies. And with players like Luis Diaz getting closer to a return to action, the opportunities to find the goals required to deliver the numbers are growing greater.

If Liverpool’s soon-to-be broken up squad has the collective will to deliver against the league’s established big-hitters, the promise of the continuation of elite European football at Anfield can still be around next season for those who survive the summer cull.

A brave approach could bring results that can paper over the cracks of a mediocre season for a few months at least. Nobody wants to lose football matches but if the Reds can average two points per game until the end of the season, the final outcome might just be enough to get another Champions League qualification over the line.