Champions League: This Is How Defending Champions Liverpool Can Still Crash Out

Defending champions Liverpool FC were held at a 1-1 draw with Napoli in Group E match of the Champions League on Wednesday.

Had Liverpool won, they would have qualified for the knockout stage. Meanwhile, Group E's Redbull Salzburg on the same night defeated Genk, making it trickier for the European champions.

Now, Liverpool's play-offs situation will be decided in their upcoming outing, which is an away match against the Austrian club, Salzburg.

Considering if Napoli win their next Champions League match, which is against Genk, Liverpool will then need to avoid a defeat against Salzburg — which means, either a win or a draw would work too.

However, if Jurgen Klopp's team end up dropping points against Salzburg, they might put themselves on the brink of elimination. In that case, both the team will go level on points at the end of the group stage and the tie-breakers are decided in the following order:

• Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams
• Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams
• Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams
• Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams

Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson believes his side can qualify for the knockout stages.

"We would have liked to have won tonight to finish the job off, but Napoli are a good side and made it difficult and we could only get a point. We’re still in a decent position, but there’s one game left and we need to go and get a decent result there."

"They’re a good team with good players so we knew it would be difficult. There were times where obviously we could do better but there were times where we played some good stuff. In the second half, we were just searching for the second one, we couldn’t manage to get it but we keep going. Like I say, we’re still in a healthy position but we need to get a result away now. We’ll stay positive. We’ve still got a job to do away but we’re confident we can do that," the Reds skipper said.