Gary Neville believes that Liverpool will ultimately do enough to secure a place in next season’s Champions League despite their ongoing travails in the current campaign.
The Reds currently occupy the fourth and final Premier League place ensuring a direct passage into Europe’s premier club tournament for 2026/27, although draws against Leeds and Fulham to begin the New Year represented missed opportunities to pull away from the chasing pack.
The two teams closest to them in the table – Chelsea and Manchester United – are both managerless at present after the respective dismissals of Enzo Maresca and Ruben Amorim, and both have also drawn their two most recent top-flight matches.
Neville backing Liverpool to qualify for Champions League
Liverpool currently have a three-point lead on that duo, and with nobody outside the top three displaying any great consistency, Neville is backing Arne Slot’s side to do enough to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, he said: “Liverpool look like they’re gonna finish in the Champions League places, partly because they’re good enough to but partly because there aren’t enough teams around them good enough to knock them out of them.
“They’re gonna get there in terms of Champions League places but they’re nowhere near the levels of last season and they’re not going to shock us by going on a great run in the second half of the season, because they’re still making quite a lot of errors and mistakes.”
Liverpool have been near-annual participants in the Champions League over the past decade
(Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Liverpool need to stop giving the chasing pack a chance
Slot has bemoaned Liverpool’s reliance on ‘luck’ to see them through tight games and ‘bad luck’ when they don’t, and he’ll realise that the six points his team have dropped due to the concession of stoppage-time goals could cost them literal millions if they miss out on a place in the Champions League for next season.
Even had they held on away to Leeds and Fulham over the past month, the Reds would be seven points clear of the chasing pack and well-placed to at least finish inside the top four. Instead, they keep leaving the door open for the likes of Chelsea and Man United, and maybe even some surprise contenders elsewhere.
Harrison Reed’s 97th-minute stunner on Sunday means that the champions go to leaders Arsenal later this week on a low ebb, and they could be bumped down to sixth by the time that fixture kicks off due to the chasing pack playing their midweek matches 24 hours prior.
What could ultimately save Liverpool is that, like last season, the Premier League is on course to take one of the two additional Champions League berths from the European Performance Spots. If that happens, fifth would be good enough to qualify for the continent’s premier club competition.
The Reds won’t want to be left reliant on that particular back door, though, and while Neville has backed us to eventually do enough to be a Champions League side again in 2026/27, that status could hang in the balance for another while yet unless Slot’s team stop frittering away vital points with stoppage-time lapses in concentration.