John Barnes has given his prediction as to where he believes Liverpool will finish in the Premier League table this season.The Reds began the campaign as defending champions and many pundits’ favourites to retain the title, but having lost five of their last six top-flight matches, they’ve dropped to eighth in the table and are already eight points adrift of leaders Arsenal.While some pundits believe it’s too early to completely discount Arne Slot’s side from bouncing back to defend their crown, others have written off LFC as legitimate contenders for the trophy after only 11 games.Barnes backs Liverpool to improveOn the latest episode of the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, Barnes spoke of how many of Liverpool’s regular starters are still quite young (and, in some cases, new to the English top flight) and believes that they’ll succeed in time, while also backing the Reds to improve substantially on their current position.The Anfield legend said: “We’re finding our feet and these are still young and inexperienced players for the Premier League, so I’ll give them this season.“That’s not to say we’re going to finish eighth or ninth or seventh or sixth. I think we’ll be third, which would be a disappointment for Liverpool fans, but I think moving forward we’re in a healthy place.”(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)Liverpool have an ideal six-game run to regain momentumBarnes’ prediction corresponds with the projections from Opta Analyst after the most recent Premier League gameweek, with its statistical model simulating a third-place finish for Liverpool.Some supporters might take a guarantee of that right now if offered it, given the Reds’ current placing, but ‘Digger’ is right in saying that it’d still constitute a disappointing return when considering how much optimism there had been at the outset of the campaign.Eight points off Arsenal sounds like a lot, but Slot’s team are only four behind Manchester City in second, which illustrates just how tightly the clubs in the top half are bunched and how quickly the picture could change with even a brief run of consistent good form.Liverpool still have six more Premier League fixtures to play in the next month, and with three of those pitting us against teams in the current bottom five, there seems an ideal opportunity to get a winning run going again and nudge back into the Champions League positions.The Reds certainly aren’t where we want them to be, but there’s too much quality in the squad for things not to click eventually. For now the objective is to just get a couple of wins under our belt and build from there, so that we’ll be in a much healthier place by Christmas.You can watch Slot’s full post-Man City press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:The post John Barnes predicts where Liverpool will finish this season – it could be a ‘disappointment’ appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.