Liverpool kept their slim chances of the Premier League title alive – just about – on Sunday with a 4-2 win over Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield, leaving the Londoners seven points behind Aston Villa in the final UEFA Champions League qualifying position. Jurgen Klopp’s men took a comfortable 4-0 lead through goals from Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott before Ange Postecoglou’s side rallied with late strikes from Richarlison and Son Heung-min to make it a decided nervous last ten minutes.
Despite the Reds’ worrying late faltering, they remain five points behind Arsenal at the EPL summit with just six points to play, although Manchester City can extinguish those hopes by winning their own match, which happens to be against Spurs. However, Tottenham now need to win their three remaining games and hope Villa don’t take any points from their last two games with their next outing being the visit of none other than Liverpool at Villa Park in the penultimate game of the campaign.
This comes after Villa went down 1-0 at Brighton and Hove Albion earlier on Sunday and lost another player to injury at Morgan Rogers, with Unai Emery’s running injury requiring a miracle to overcome a 4-2 deficit in the first leg against Olympiacos in UEFA. Semi-finals of the Europa Conference League. Despite another entertaining and goal-rich round of fixtures, Liverpool and Spurs’ positions remain unchanged and both effectively need to win their remaining games to have any chance – however slim – of finishing higher than their current position.
Even six points for Klopp’s Reds will almost certainly not even be enough to move up to second place, while nine points is a huge ask from Postecoglou’s Tottenham from their last three games, including Pep Guardiola’s City, who could seal the title by to overtake Arsenal. Spurs have now lost four games in a row and conceded thirteen goals in that time, with one win from six EPL appearances. A return not worthy of a top-four finish by usual standards, and another Villa win against Liverpool or Crystal Palace would deny that possibility.
For Klopp and Liverpool, Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers will be Klopp’s final farewell in what will feel like a hugely disappointing end to what has generally been a wonderful period for the club under the German’s management. Whether it finishes slightly higher than third or not, the EFL Cup victory at least guaranteed a final piece of silverware, even if it wasn’t quite the trophy that seemed possible until a few weeks ago.
The bottom line in all of this for both Liverpool and Tottenham is that both are about to pay for a lack of consistency, letting themselves down in key moments that could well define their years. A run of two wins from seven for the Reds ended their Premier League and UEFA Europa League hopes, while Spurs somehow failed to capitalize on their 4-0 thrashing of Villa with only two wins for five defeats and a draw since then.
Postecoglou is already speaking publicly about the need to make big changes to this Spurs side, despite being more active than most last January. Whether it was an attempt to motivate his troops or not, it’s not exactly an incentive for the current crop to perform. . Barring the most unexpected scenarios, there really shouldn’t be any major changes to the top five in the EPL, with Tottenham just as likely to be overtaken by Newcastle United as Spurs are to overtake Villa at the last second.
