Liverpool's Champions League Hopes Hang by a Thread
Less than a year after Liverpool climbed to the summit of English football, the picture could hardly feel more fragile. No title race. No domestic cup run to cling to. No European adventure left. Arne Slot’s debut season now hangs on a single, brutal question: can Liverpool drag themselves back into the Champions League?
For Slot, it may be more than just a target. It may be the line that decides how his first year is judged inside Anfield and beyond. He has already been clear enough: miss out on Champions League football and this would "definitely not be an acceptable season".
Against Paris St-Germain, Liverpool’s 17th defeat of the campaign somehow managed to be one of their better nights. That in itself tells a story. For 72 minutes, they went toe-to-toe with the champions of Europe, harrying and pressing, snapping into tackles, daring to believe that Anfield could bend another heavyweight tie to its will.
Then Ousmane Dembele cut through the illusion.
His 72nd-minute strike, crisp and ruthless, punctured the noise and the hope. From that moment, the tie felt settled not just in scoreline but in status. Liverpool had pushed, but PSG had controlled. Over two legs, 4-0 did not flatter Luis Enrique’s side.
"It was an intense match between two teams who played really good football," Enrique said afterwards. He was right. His team, though, played it with a swagger that Liverpool once recognised as their own.
This is not a Liverpool side to be embarrassed by a PSG exit. Far from it. Enrique’s team are a slick, confident machine, comfortable on the ball and brimming with belief. They look exactly what they are: the best side in Europe.
The concern on Merseyside lies elsewhere. Liverpool have slipped.
Last season, when these clubs met in the Champions League last 16, PSG were superior across the tie but needed penalties to finish the job. Liverpool clung on, forced extra time, made it awkward. This time, there was no such tension. PSG outclassed Slot’s team in Paris and, while Anfield saw flickers of resistance, there was no sense of injustice in the aggregate score.
Slot clung to the positives, and there were some.
"Of course we are very disappointed because I think there were parts of the second half where you could feel 'if we could just score now, this could become a very special night'," he said. You could sense that in the stands too. A goal then and Anfield would have roared itself hoarse.
"But the future looks very bright for this team, for this club. We have showed we can compete with the champions of Europe in our stadium. To be the dominant team, not many teams can be dominant against PSG and create as many chances as we did."
The numbers back him up, at least for the night. Liverpool’s xG at Anfield was 1.94, a world away from the anaemic 0.18 they mustered at the Parc des Princes. They played higher, braver, with more incision. They created. They just didn’t finish.
And that is where the optimism meets the hard edge of reality. Bright futures are built on cold decisions. Liverpool still look some distance from being genuine European contenders again. The gap to PSG is not about one missed chance or one misjudged press; it is about depth, rhythm, and ruthlessness.
Then there is Mohamed Salah.
At full-time, he took his time. He turned to all four sides of Anfield and waved, a measured, unmistakable farewell to Champions League nights in red. Whether it proves to be a goodbye to the competition or to the club will define the next chapter of Liverpool’s story.
For now, the question is simpler: will Slot and Liverpool even be back in this competition next season?
On a night demanding clarity and conviction, Slot took a risk. He started Alexander Isak for the first time since December, throwing him straight into the biggest game of the season after an ankle injury. Slot admitted before kick-off that the striker was only fit for one half.
With hindsight, it looked like a gamble that never came close to paying off.
Isak had just five touches in 45 minutes. Five. He drifted, he chased shadows, he never imposed himself. At the break, he was hooked for Cody Gakpo, who immediately gave Liverpool a focal point and an edge they had lacked.
Slot stood by his call.
"He [Isak] was twice close to a goal and that's why you play a striker of his level. There was one header from a set-piece and one great run in behind [Willian] Pacho where he was really close to scoring, which was eventually offside," he said.
"It's good to have him back. He was ready and if I thought he wasn't ready then I wouldn't have played him."
The manager’s faith was not widely shared.
"That line-up to start was complete nonsense," said Julien Laurens on 5 Live. "That second half should have been how Liverpool started this game tonight to get the crowd going. It should not have been Alexander Isak to start.
"Arne Slot made errors in that first leg in his line-up in the way they set up. Tonight he cannot get it wrong. Tonight is not the night to get it wrong. He had to get it right from the beginning. Again, for me, he let the club down, the team down and the fans down."
Stephen Warnock, watching a club he once represented, was equally scathing about Isak’s display.
"I don't know what to say about Alexander Isak. I watched him here against Fulham and he was awful.
"He was non-existent here tonight. He didn't want to get any physical contact alongside Marquinhos. He was sort of wanting to bump into him. There was no wanting to build a platform for his team to get on to the ball.
Cody Gakpo did more in five minutes than Isak did in the whole first half. He is not fit. He is nowhere near fit. That's partly due to the injury he sustained against Tottenham, but sitting out pre-season, he has not got one ounce of fitness in him this season and it tells.
And you think you can put him against PSG, in your biggest game of the season against the best team in Europe, and think you get a performance in 45 minutes? You can't just switch it on and off."
The crowd did not turn on Isak. Anfield rarely does that to its own. But the frustration was palpable, the sense of a big night compromised by a big call that never needed to be made.
By the time the final whistle blew, the picture was painfully clear. PSG march on, full of rhythm and certainty. Liverpool are left with questions, a bright-but-not-yet-burning future, and a manager who has nailed his colours to the mast: without Champions League football, this season is not acceptable.
The margin for error between now and May is gone. The European stage has closed its doors on Liverpool for now. The league will decide how long they stay locked out.
