How Liverpool’s draw with Stoke could see them miss out on Champions League qualification for next season

The Reds missed out on guaranteeing their place in next season's competition

While all looks so rosy for Liverpool FC at the moment, with a cushty first-leg lead over Roma in the Champions League looking like more than enough for a place in the final and Mohamed Salah being hailed as the best of the rest after Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

And it could have been all the better still, had Salah’s dink against Stoke City crept inside the post, rather than inches wide. Or Danny Ings’ effort hadn’t been ruled out for offside. Or if they had been awarded a penalty for a rather blatant, albeit accidental, handball by Erik Pieters late on at Anfield.

That would have guaranteed them Champions League football next season. But it stayed 0-0. And Liverpool could face a season without it altogether as a consequence.

Jurgen Klopp’s side are sitting pretty in third in the Premier League at present, two points behind second-placed Manchester United and nine clear of fifth-placed Chelsea. However, they have played two games more than their other top-six rivals.

Chelsea’s two games in hand are against Swansea City and Huddersfield Town, with a home game against no other than Liverpool sandwiched in between them. Win all three of those games and the Blues will be level on points with one game left to play.

That leaves both sides going into the final day of the season with Liverpool knowing they must win and any slip will see Chelsea take the fourth and final Champions League spot for the new campaign. The do have the buffer of a goal difference of 18 more than Chelsea, however.

Under normal circumstances a slip of this magnitude would be highly unlikely, and it still is, but with a probable Champions League final on the horizon, players could be rested in the league.

There is always the path of the champion’s entry to next season’s competition where the current winners get automatic entry – but they would have to beat either Real Madrid, the 12-time winners, or Bayern Munich, the five-time winners, to do so.

It’s an improbable turn of events but Liverpool know they need only look at their own history for proof of how the most unlikely of turnarounds happen more often than you think.