Five fiascos that will see Liverpool lose the Premier League title to Arsenal

The limp defeat to Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final followed Champions League elimination at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain in a truly rotten week for Liverpool which leaves them with just the Premier League to play for. And probably win.

While their 12-point lead means they already have one hand on the trophy, football fans are pessimistic by nature and some Liverpool fans have got the willies over their ability to stay the course.

Allied with a general malaise evident on Sunday that’s creeping into their football and could bring about a downturn performances and results, we’ve come up with five key moments in the remainder of the season that would see them cede the title to Arsenal.

And then maybe this would not be the worst Premier League season ever.

Merseyside derby defeat
Everton’s record at Anfield is pants. They’ve won on just one of their last 27 visits (15 losses; 11 draws), but that victory was recent enough – under Carlo Ancelotti in 2021 – that a number of players likely to be playing on April 2 featured, including Liverpool fan-agitator Abdoulaye Doucoure and the agitated-by-proxy Curtis Jones.

The upcoming clash looks set to be particularly fiery after James Tarkowski’s late, late equaliser in the last-ever Merseyside derby at Goodison Park and the ensuing madness, and it’s that added desperation to win for the Liverpool players and the fans, combined with the Toffees’ honking record at Anfield, which means defeat – particularly if it comes in a similar gut-punching manner as the draw last month – will lead to a crisis of confidence and creeping doubts among the players.

READ: What next for Liverpool? This really could be a one-and-done season for Arne Slot’s side

Arne Slot ban
The Coolest Man In The Stadium didn’t live up to that billing at Goodison, storming onto the pitch and letting Michael Oliver know that “if we don’t win the league, I’ll f***ing blame you” after the referee failed to award Liverpool a free-kick for what Slot was convinced was a push on Ibrahima Konate in the build-up to Tarkowski’s goal.

The Liverpool boss later admitted that “my emotions got the better of me” and while he seems like a guy who will have learned his lesson ahead of the next meeting with Everton, there will still be a limit to his chill; another ban (set to be longer as a second offence) simply relies upon there being a perceived injustice too significant for him not to notify another official of their place on his sh*tlist.

A goal after the allotted injury time would be good, involving some sort of foul or with the linesman failing to see the ball had crossed the byline in the build-up. We can only speculate, and while a points deduction is too much to ask for and believing his absence from the touchline would have such an adverse effect as to give rise to a bottling of unparalleled proportions is fanciful, the ban could be part of a cumulative set of unfavourable factors in their demise.

Mohamed Salah injured as Bukayo Saka returns
Liverpool would be below Arsenal in the table without their respective MVPs, and against PSG and Newcastle the Reds fans have been given a glimpse of a Liverpool with the ‘ghost’ of Mohamed Salah playing in the living, breathing version’s stead.

Our guess is Salah will quickly return to his brilliant best and lead Liverpool to the title if he doesn’t pick up some sort of knock to rule him out (which we wouldn’t wish upon anyone of course, and is pretty unlikely anyway given he’s missed just 23 games through injury in his eight years at the club).

Bukayo Saka could end up missing that many games this season (he’s already missed 20), but his return at the point when Salah’s ruled out would result in a notable momentum shift in what could by that point be a title race.

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Contracts fall-out 
Liverpool are dragging their feet in negotiations with their out-of-contract trio having seemingly come to terms with the reality of not being able to sign all of them to the sort of deals they’re after. Virgil van Dijk has revealed there will be “news before the end of the season” on his future, and thus probably on Trent Alexander-Arnold and Salah’s as well.

There’s been non-stop speculation as to which of the three, if any, will stay, with Salah breaking ranks on a couple of occasions and Real Madrid making an early play for Alexander-Arnold having very little effect on their performances, to their credit and Slot’s.

As far as we know there have been no serious sit-downs involving the club, the players and their representatives with a view (as consistently stated by Van Dijk) to focusing on the football, which suggests that talks that need to happen before the end of the season could lead that focus to drift, with the high likelihood of one or more of the three being disappointed by those discussions potentially leading to bad blood, dressing-room unease and squad rifts.

Six-pointer defeat
With Slot in the stands for most of it, Salah on the sidelines, ill-will amid contract uncertainty and Arsenal cruising with a close to fully-fit squad focused on the Premier League after Champions League exit, Mikel Arteta’s side will have closed the gap to the point where Sky Sports producers feel emboldened to enrol the services of a privately-educated north London rap artist to spit rhymes about local lads coming good with escaping street gangs as the subtext.

THE TITLE DECIDER that’s been advertised for a week in the build-up flashes up on our screens 427 times in the coverage of a game that in no way lives up to the hype but does see Arsenal emerge triumphant against a Liverpool side that fails to rise to the occasion at Anfield.

NOW READ: When will Liverpool win the league? Earliest, funniest, Arsenal guard of honour, Anfield decider