‘It wouldn’t surprise me…’ – Neville drops Liverpool Champions League prediction ahead of PSG | OneFootball

Gary Neville has predicted Liverpool to clinch the Premier League title by the end of April, but he’s not so sure about them adding the Champions League trophy the following month.

The Reds go into the second leg of their round-of-16 tie against Paris Saint-Germain with a 1-0 lead to take back to Anfield, but having been outplayed for almost the entirety of last week’s game in the French capital, it feels as though the outcome is still very much in the balance.

Even if Arne Slot’s side prevail tomorrow night, there’d still be three more opponents to negotiate in order to ascend the winners’ podium in Munich on 31 May, and the semi-final (if we get there) is set to be against one of Arsenal or either of the big two Madrid clubs.

Neville: Liverpool v PSG is a ’50-50 game’

Speaking on the Gary Neville podcast on Sunday, the ex-Manchester United defender isn’t convinced that Liverpool will win a seventh European Cup this year, or even that they’ll progress past PSG on Tuesday.

The 50-year-old said: “I’m not quite sure I see Liverpool winning the Champions League. You can never write them off in that competition but I don’t quite see it.

“It wouldn’t surprise me actually if they went out this week. It’s a 50-50 game. Liverpool could easily win but so could PSG. They’re a good side.”

(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Liverpool will need to improve vastly on first-leg performance

Just as in 2020, Liverpool are freewheeling towards the Premier League title but could conceivably be out of the Champions League before the quarter-final stage. Five years ago, our European dreams were ended by Atletico Madrid following a home defeat in the round of 16 on…11 March.

The Reds will be determined to avoid an uncannily similar repeat scenario tomorrow night, but they’ll need to be significantly better than they were in Paris last Wednesday, or in the first half against Southampton at the weekend.

Some of the noises coming out of PSG over the past few days have been rather ungracious and disrespectful towards LFC, and Slot’s side certainly won’t be lacking for motivation to make their opponents regret their sour attitude.

Whereas Liverpool had a near full-strength side out on Saturday, the Ligue 1 leaders made wholesale changes for their 4-1 victory at Rennes, so the likes of Ousmane Dembele, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Fabian Ruiz, Vitinha and Nuno Mendes will be relatively fresh for the game at Anfield.

As Andy Robertson has chimed, hopefully we won’t be so reliant on Alisson Becker to produce another miraculous performance tomorrow night. With the Premier League title seeming increasingly inevitable, the chance to double up with the Champions League isn’t one that the Reds will want to give up too easily.

1983/84 was the last time that Liverpool won the domestic and European crowns in the same season, so it’d be quite special if we could repeat the feat this year. It’ll be far from easy to accomplish, but we wouldn’t completely discount Slot’s team from pulling it off!