Image Credits: Imago Images
Arne Slot’s position at Liverpool is coming under real scrutiny, with a growing section of the fanbase feeling that missing out on Champions League football would be grounds for the club to make a change in the dugout.
One of the few remaining lifelines is the possibility that 5th place could still be enough. Under UEFA’s revamped format, two extra Champions League places are handed out each year to the leagues whose clubs perform best across all three European competitions, using the association coefficient rankings.
If Premier League sides as a whole have one of the top two seasons in Europe, England earns an additional Champions League berth, and that spot would go to the team finishing just outside the usual top four. In that scenario, Liverpool could squeeze into the new league phase from 5th, even if they fall short of the old benchmark.
However, when quizzed on whether a lack of UCL could curtail his time at Anfield, Arne Slot pointed towards Jurgen Klopp ‘s 2022/23 campaign as a reference point:
“That is a difficult question for me to answer because I don’t decide on my future,” he said in his pre-Sunderland press conference. “The only thing I do know is that it happened before and recently and it didn’t affect the future of that manager[Jurgen Klopp]
“But that doesn’t guarantee anything, of course. In general, managers, especially at this club – maybe somewhere else – it is not only about results. Mainly, but not only.
“At some clubs they also look at the progress the players make, the progress the team makes, the circumstances are sometimes taken into account.
“That is not at all clubs, but I think I am working at a club that does look at those things, as it has shown in the past when the club did not qualify for the Champions League.”
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