Liverpool complete their Premier League campaign at Anfield against Brentford knowing a win or a draw secures Champions League qualification. A defeat, however, would hand the final say to Bournemouth, who travel to Nottingham Forest on the last day.<\/p>\n
In the narrowest of scenarios Bournemouth would move level on points if they beat Forest and the Reds lose. A seven-goal swing would then see Bournemouth overtake Liverpool on goal difference. The draft scenario gives a clear example: if Liverpool lost 4\u20130 and Bournemouth won 3\u20130 at the City Ground, the Cherries would rise into fifth.<\/p>\n
There is a still more unlikely outcome that would require an additional match to separate the two clubs. If Liverpool were to lose 1\u20130 and Bournemouth win 5\u20130, then a one-legged clash at a neutral venue would be staged to decide who finishes fifth, as outlined by Opta\u2019s Michael Reid. Yes, seriously. That’s because Liverpool and Bournemouth would be level on all the decisive factors:<\/p>\n
After points, goal difference and goals scored are considered, competition rules provide for a playoff when teams remain tied on those metrics. That is the extraordinary backstop in the regulations that could, in theory, determine who takes the final Champions League spot.<\/p>\n
Even with these permutations, Opta give Liverpool a 99.65% chance of qualifying for the Champions League. The permutations underline how fine margins and extreme scorelines can open improbable pathways, but the probability that a playoff will be required remains vanishingly small.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unlikely scorelines could force Liverpool into a playoff for fifth and decide Champions League fate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1505,1162],"class_list":["post-13944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-accountability","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13944","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=13944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}