Gary Neville makes surprise Liverpool statement amid Premier League decision

Liverpol are being backed to return to title contention next season by Gary Neville, despite an underwhelming season.

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City have just won their third consecutive league title, but the last side to earn a title win other than the Manchester club was indeed Liverpool during the 2019/20 season, and the former Manchester United defender has tipped them to challenge the Citizens once again.

Currently, the Reds look set to finish in fifth place - meaning this would be the first season since the 2016/17 season in which they haven’t finished in the top four places whilst they’ve also finished trophyless.

However, they had produced a seven-game winning run which was only recently halted by Aston Villa at the weekend and there’s certainly hope for next season with a big summer transfer window in the works.

And Neville, speaking on Monday Night Football, believes they are one of the sides who can compete with City next season.

“The only team really that has proven they can run them really close and that I would trust most would be Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool.” Neville stated.

“But I’m not sure about that because they’ve dropped off way below last time when they had a bad season.

“I also have to say that Jurgen Klopp’s performance at Liverpool with his net spend of being like £200m in the last five years, compared to Pep Guardiola’s deserves a special mention - he’s equally as good.”

Liverpool have consistently challenged City over the years, taking them to the final day in the 2018/19 and 2021/22 seasons as well as winning the 2019/20 campaign.

They currently sit 22 points off the league-leaders and overturning that gap next season will prove difficult given the form of Erling Haaland this season.

If the Reds can recruit strongly in midfield this summer, there’s no reason why they can’t challenge their rivals once again, as they still possess the firepower of Mohamed Salah as well as Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez - all of which should improve next season.