Saturday's draw with Aston Villa was very much the final nail in the coffin in terms of our hopes of qualifying for next season's Champions League. It would take an almighty capitulation from Manchester United to lose their next two Premier League games. In truth, our resurgence came too little too late.
And while the vast majority, Jurgen Klopp included, will be happy to have secured Europa League qualification, I don't understand Liverpool fans who would have rather we had not qualified for the competition and missed out altogether. A team of our stature has to be competing in Europe no matter what competition it is.
Look, it is what it is. It's not ideal, but it's what we deserve. It's what we deserve because it happened over the course of 38 Premier League games.
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The one positive, however, is that the Europa League final is in Dublin next year; the nearest capital city to Liverpool. If we do manage to get to the final, that is going to be some party. The amount of support Liverpool have got in Ireland is absolutely massive. Massive. That's the one good thing. The players have to know what it means to play there.
If you get to the quarter-finals of the Europa League, it gets tasty. It means there could be some big European nights at Anfield in the latter stages of the competition.
On the flip side, some of the lesser games in the earlier rounds will provide the younger players with important game time, especially if we add more players to the ranks in the summer. Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, Caoimhin Kelleher, Fabio Carvalho, Stefan Bajcetic and Ben Doak, I'm sure, would all love to play in those European fixtures.
I'm not going to hide it, though, we're used to the Champions League more than any other club. We've won it six times, twice as many as any other English side. We are the most valued team from the Premier League in Europe by far. But we've absolutely got to go for the Europa League if that's where we end.
For Kelleher, though, it could be the difference between whether he stays or goes in the summer. I know Klopp said during his press conference last week that it would take an extraordinary offer for Liverpool to even consider his departure this summer but the reality is unless he gets regular game time here then he's going to be looking elsewhere. He's still got many years left, and he's still the best young goalkeeper around, for me. He's just not getting the experience he needs at the moment.
But the Europa League will give him that game time. He's going to be a star and we're very lucky to have him at Anfield. Especially in the modern game with how he is with his feet, he's immaculate. Ideally, he needs to play. But, from a selfish point of view, we need cover for Alisson - and Kelleher is the best back-up goalkeeper in the world and that was proven during both the League Cup and FA Cup runs last year.
There are going to be an awful lot of changes during the summer and you have to be careful not to disrupt the balance too much with seven or eight departures. His time will come - he's got another 14, 15 years at the top - and next year he'll get more experience. For the present though, we need him.
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