FFor attacking player Mohamed Salah, the missed Champions League qualification with Liverpool is a shock. “I am devastated. There’s no excuse for that,” the Egyptian wrote on Instagram after England’s record-breaking champions Manchester United won 4-1 in the catch-up game against Chelsea late Thursday evening.
As a result, coach Jürgen Klopp’s team can no longer reach fourth place in the English Premier League on the last day of the game. “We had everything we needed to make it to the Champions League this year and we failed,” wrote Salah, 30. Liverpool, who won the premier class in 2019, are not in the Champions League for the first time in six years.
“This is the absolute minimum”
The Reds are six points behind United and four behind Newcastle United with one game left to play in the season. Despite the race to catch up in recent weeks, the Klopp team will finish fifth in the Premier League and play in the Europa League next season. “We are Liverpool and qualifying for the competition is the bare minimum,” wrote the disappointed Salah.
The Brazilian Casemiro (6th minute), Anthony Martial (45th + 6th), Bruno Fernandes with a penalty kick (73rd) and Marcus Rashford (78th) ensured the victory for Manchester United with their goals, which thus moved to third shifted space. City rivals Manchester City are already the champions. Chelsea, which was only able to shorten the gap by Joao Felix (89th), is only in twelfth place after a disastrous season despite high investments. German international Kai Havertz was also unable to do anything until he was substituted in the 64th minute at Old Trafford on Thursday.
Long-time Bundesliga manager Jörg Schmadtke is now to help Klopp rebuild the squad in Liverpool. According to information from the “Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung”, Schmadtke will initially work as a transfer consultant for the Reds for three months in the upcoming changeover period and will be officially presented on Friday.
The 59-year-old Schmadtke (59) last worked for four and a half years as managing director at VfL Wolfsburg. At the end of January he gave up his post and actually retired. Now he is drawn to the traditional English club. The newspaper wrote that a longer cooperation with Liverpool FC could not be ruled out either.
At the same time, Liverpool want to intensify the search for a new sports director. Also because of the missed participation in the next campaign of the premier class, the team is facing a major upheaval. Schmadtke should now design it together with Klopp. There is work to be done. Not only a Mo salah will take a close look at how the club is positioning itself to prevent missing the Champions League again.
