With two matches left in a difficult 2025\u201326 campaign, Liverpool arrive at Villa Park with Champions League qualification still to secure. Arne Slot\u2019s side have just two fixtures remaining: away to Aston Villa and then at home to Brentford. Three points from those games would guarantee a top-five finish.<\/p>\n
The simplest outcome is clear. A win at Villa Park would qualify Liverpool for the Champions League. That result would put the Reds out of reach of Bournemouth and Brighton & Hove Albion, with three points from Friday ensuring Liverpool cannot be caught.<\/p>\n
Aston Villa are in the same position on points and know that victory would also clinch their place, with Unai Emery\u2019s team currently only behind Liverpool on goal difference. Villa also have the Europa League final against Freiburg to consider next Wednesday; a win in that game would deliver Champions League qualification for them.<\/p>\n
A draw in Birmingham could be enough for Liverpool. A stalemate would take them to 60 points, five ahead of Bournemouth and seven clear of Brighton, having played one more match. If Bournemouth then failed to beat Manchester City at home the following Tuesday, Liverpool\u2019s lead would be unassailable.<\/p>\n
Defeat at Villa Park would not automatically eliminate the Reds but would put them at the mercy of other results. A loss would require Brighton to fail to beat Leeds United on Sunday and Bournemouth to lose against Man City for Liverpool to still claim qualification before the final day.<\/p>\n
If Brighton win this weekend and Bournemouth take at least a draw with Man City while Liverpool lose at Villa, Slot\u2019s side would need to wait until the final day to seal their place. They would still control their destiny on the last day by needing to beat Brentford at Anfield.<\/p>\n
The maximum Liverpool can finish on is 65 points. Even successive wins over Aston Villa and Brentford would leave them 19 points short of last season\u2019s Premier League-winning total.<\/p>\n
Key table detail: Liverpool are fourth on +12 goal difference with 59 points; Aston Villa are fifth on +4 with 59 points; Bournemouth sit on +4 with 55 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Win at Villa sends Liverpool into the Champions League; draws or other results could change that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,175,172],"tags":[1162,1680],"class_list":["post-13821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-qualification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}