Liverpool could be secretly hoping for Portsmouth to go bust as they have most to gain should Pompey's record this season be expunged, reports the Daily Mirror. That would be the worst possible outcome for the League, ready to impose its nine-point penalty the moment they enter administration, which seems the nightmare best-case scenario for the club.

Liquidation though would transform the look of the table - and could make Liverpool's Christmas loss at Fratton Park, bizarrely, one of their best results of the entire campaign.

If Pompey go bust and out of business, then all their results would be expunged, leaving a 19-club league and a season reduced to 36 official matches.

The consequences would be dramatic at both ends of the table, with Liverpool, Wolves, Wigan and Burnley, the four teams who have conspired to lose to Pompey this season, the ones with most to gain as their rivals lose up to six points.

Rafa Benitez' men would stand third in the revised table on their current tally of 44 points, a point ahead of the Gunners, with Spurs three further points adrift in third and Manchester City another two behind, albeit with two games in hand.

At the bottom, the effect would be equally graphic.

West Ham, currently a point off safety, would suddenly plummet four points and two places to the foot of the table, six points adrift of safety.

This is how the Premier League table would look if Portsmouth went out of business (@10/02/10):

PTS Chelsea 55 Manchester United 50 Liverpool 44 Arsenal 43 Tottenham 40 Manchester City 38 Aston Villa 38 Birmingham 34 Everton 29 Fulham 28 Stoke 27 Blackburn 25 Sunderland 24 Wigan 24 Burnley 23 Hull 23 Wolves 21 Bolton 19 West Ham 17