Loss means Arsenal need to repeat Liverpool's 2005 feat

Arsenal's 1-0 defeat at Liverpool appears to have left the Londoners in the same unenviable position as the Merseysiders a year ago, needing to win the Champions League to qualify for next season's tournament

Luis Garcia's 87th-minute goal on Tuesday night means Arsenal remain four points adrift of the fourth Champions League qualifying spot held by Tottenham Hotspur.

Not only will Arsene Wenger's side have to eclipse their north London neighbours over the last 12 Premier League games of the season, they must also hold off a resurgent West Ham United and the improving Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic.

Wenger, whose team seem to be on the slide while their closest rivals are on the up, has given up on maintaining his sequence of finishing in the top two in every one of his eight full seasons in the Premier League.

"Automatic qualification (for the Champions League) in the top two, certainly not," Wenger told reporters after the defeat at Anfield.

"Qualification is still possible but it will be hard."

Wenger threw in the towel on his title campaign a while ago but then so did all the other teams chasing Chelsea, even if the champions' shock defeat at Middlesbrough last weekend let in a chink of light at least for Manchester United.

Chelsea lead the way on 66 points, 12 in front of United with Liverpool third on 51.

Spurs are next on 45 points followed by Arsenal and West Ham, on the back of a seven-match winning streak, on 41.

England job

Bolton, whose manager Sam Allardyce has been strongly tipped to take over when Sven-Goran Eriksson leaves his England post at the end of the World Cup, present another big threat to Arsenal on 39 points with two games in hand.

"What can I say? We have lost another away game 1-0 and it is happening too often," said Wenger after Arsenal slumped to their fourth 1-0 defeat in five weeks on their travels.

"This has happened to us a lot away from home, losing 1-0 when we have not taken chances and find ourselves hanging on.

"It is a difference between a great season and a bad season. We are being punished for our form away from home," said Wenger, whose team meet Real Madrid in the first knockout round of the Champions League, with the first leg away next week.

Spurs can pull further away from their neighbours when they entertain Wigan in the only Premier League match this weekend when focus shifts to the fifth round of the FA Cup.

When full Premier League action resumes on the last weekend of the month, Arsenal will be looking to avoid another away defeat at Blackburn Rovers that could put them even further adrift of the top four.

That same weekend Liverpool, who entertain Manchester United in the FA Cup this Saturday, host Manchester City.