Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah insists there can be no excuse for missing out on Champions League football. The 30-year-old admits the team has failed and let fans down this season with a fifth-placed finish.
Eddie Howe's Newcastle United head already clinched a top-four place with Monday night's goalless draw with Leicester City at St James' Park, and Manchester United's 4-1 win over Chelsea on Thursday night means fourth place is now out of reach for last season's beaten finalists.
Jurgen Klopp's side have underperformed all season and it was only their current 10-match unbeaten run - which included a sequence of seven victories - which gave them a remote chance of qualifying for Europe's elite club competition. But their participation in the Europa League, the first time Klopp has not made the top four in a full season at the club, has left Salah frustrated.
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"I'm totally devastated. There's absolutely no excuse for this," the Egypt international, who rarely makes public statements, wrote in a strongly-worded post on Twitter. "We had everything we needed to make it to next year's Champions League and we failed.
"We are Liverpool and qualifying to the competition is the bare minimum. I am sorry but it's too soon for an uplifting or optimistic post. We let you and ourselves down."
In a disappointing season Salah has still scored 30 goals and is only one away from becoming the first player in Premier League history to provide 20 goals and 10 assists in three seasons, which would surpass the record he shares with Thierry Henry.
He is one short of reaching 20 league goals in a season for the fifth time in six years at Liverpool (he scored 19 in the other) and if he manages to score at Southampton on Sunday he will become the first Liverpool player since Roger Hunt in 1965-66 to score 20 league goals for a third successive season.
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