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Gary Neville has refused to rule Liverpool out of the Premier League title race, despite their slow start to the campaign.
The Reds have won just two of their first seven matches and currently sit ninth in the table, already 11 points behind leaders Arsenal. Their latest setback came this weekend at home to Brighton, where they drew 3-3 thanks to some defensive howlers from Jurgen Klopp's team.
Liverpool have run Manchester City close for several years in the league, having gained over 90 points twice while falling short to Pep Guardiola's men. But their chances of a league championship have already appeared incredibly slim this season following a stuttering start.
Their prospects appear even worse when you take into consideration Arsenal's excellent start to the season and Manchester City's ominous recent displays.
Speaking on his podcast, Neville said that Liverpool probably won't challenge for the league this term, but refused to completely rule them out. The Manchester United legend stated (as per HITC Sport):
“You think to yourself, ‘Are they going to compete this year for the title?’ Probably not, but you never know. Because, to be fair, Jurgen Klopp can do the exceptional, and he has, to be fair, over the past few years surprised us incredibly.”
Jurgen Klopp admits confidence is low for Liverpool's players
The Reds' latest draw with Brighton would have been hugely disappointing for Klopp as they came from 2-0 down to go 3-2 up. Leandro Trossard's hat-trick ensured that Liverpool's difficult campaign continued. The German boss admitted after the game that his players' confidence needs to improve.
Klopp was asked after the draw at Anfield if his players' confidence was a concern, to which he replied (as per Football 365):
“'Concerning' I am not sure is the right word but we can’t ignore the fact. But the Ajax game didn’t give us any kind of rhythm. That’s something you usually get from these situations.
With the late goal we would have taken a lot of things into the next game, but unfortunately we didn’t play and since then that feeling is pretty much gone. We had confident moments today, Bobby for the second goal, you could see a lot of that, but the passing game was not good."
He continued:
“We passed balls all over the place, which we can only explain by saying we were not confident in that moment, because of how the game started. We are under pressure, we don’t ignore that, we don’t increase it every day but it is there.”
