IF HE MISSES TOP FOUR
It won’t be a triumph if they win today. It won’t be a miraculous achievement. They shouldn’t be celebrating like they’ve won something... unless they actually win something. Don’t get me wrong, it will be an achievement to have qualified for the Champions League, and of course I’ll be rooting for them to finish the job, but c’mon. With these clubs, the Liverpools, Arsenals, Man Uniteds, their history is about trophies. I’ll be delighted if they win mind, and gutted if they don’t, because Liverpool have been outside the Champions League for far too long. And not being there hurts a club massively. It can even cripple them (as I discovered painfully at Leeds). At the start of the season if you’d said they would finish above Arsenal and Manchester United, and go into the final day of the season still in with a real chance of getting past Manchester City, I’d have snapped your hand off. Jurgen Klopp too. I actually thought it would be a tough ask to finish ahead of those clubs, even if Liverpool have not had Europe. City and United had new managers, so too Chelsea. All spent big money, as did Arsenal. Liverpool broke even in the transfer market and had little depth in their squad, so that’s why getting in the top four will be an achievement, even if with my biased head on, I always think they should finish in the top four. You look at the money United have spent, the size of their squad, and to finish ahead of them IS an achievement, even if the lack of any real adventure at Old Trafford has been a selfinflicted shot in the foot. I really can’t see Liverpool messing it up now either, even against top-seven teams this term – 26 points in 12 unbeaten games against Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City, Manchester United and Everton.
But they dropped points against Hull and Sunderland – the teams relegated alongside Middlesbrough.
Liverpool, who lost in the finals of the League Cup and Europa League last season, must now prove they have guts to finish off the biggest challenge of Klopp’s 18-month reign.
The German has endured plenty of last-day dramas of his own during his time in charge of Mainz and Borussia Dortmund.
He said: “Have a look at my career. My seasons were always decided on the last match.
“I would like to change that, but obviously it has become a part of my life. So I am used to working until the last minute, being concentrated until the last minute. Most decisions are made in the last moment.
“The more you try, the bigger your desire is, and the more likely you will have these kind of finals. For me, it is kind of a normal situation.
“It’s all about us and this team showed me so often that they are really ready for situations like this. We have to show it again. It will be fine.”