As talk of the league resuming continues, it is increasingly feeling as though Chelsea and company are only continuing so Liverpool can be champions.
A quick scan of the back pages or a look at the click bait knockings of social media could lead you to believe that the first of April has not yet passed. The Premier League is still hell bent on completing the truncated top flight season as they look to hold onto the TV riches those remaining 92 games will bring.
The ideas being mooted to get Liverpool over the line as champions would happily furnish any April Fool’s Day prank. Shortened games, no supporters, extra substitutes, games to be played at neutral grounds in quick succession, referees not blowing their whistle (that surely is a joke) all devalue the title. The cleanest option would be to void the league, close the book and start again whenever that it is safe and possible to do so.
Do Liverpool deserve to be crowned Champions? Probably. Definitely. Should they be anointed with their first Premier League trophy? Certainly not. Somehow those games must be completed if Liverpool’s victory is to have any credence. However, whatever the outcome of talks next week to see a return of football, Liverpool will have to have an asterisk beside their name in the record books, the proviso beneath the table indicating the extenuating circumstances behind the victory*.
With games not set to resume until at least June, behind closed doors, the logistics of completing the current campaign ahead of the next will be near on impossible. Not only does the League have to finish, but so do the cup competitions. Chelsea still have to play Leicester City in the FA Cup and are 3-0 down in the Champions League after the first Leg of the tie with Bayern Munich.
That is still a lot of competitive football. Frank Lampard has already said Chelsea’s players will need four weeks to get up to speed again. Then there is the testing of players for Covid-19, potentially twice a week, and the rights and wrongs that will surround that. Add in players contracts that will have expired or be about to and the soup begins to thicken further.
Once Project Restart (as it has been coined) gets underway, Liverpool will still be two victories away from that coveted first Premier League title. Once those victories have been secured there will inevitably be questions surrounding Jurgen Klopp’s team selections and the strength of his respective starting XI’s against teams desperately trying to maintain their Premier League place.
It is an unfortunate situation and one that could not have been predicted at the start of the year. The whole situation is fast becoming a joke and there are many more important things than football but money talks. To the cynical in me though, I cannot help but think the desperation to get the league completed comes down to an unhealthy desire to simply crown LFC champions one way or another.
*The remaining eight or nine games were all played at neutral grounds, behind closed doors without supporters or indeed a referee’s whistle due to a worldwide pandemic. As such, whilst they won the title quite legitimately, to all supporters other than Liverpool’s themselves or large sections of the sporting media, it did not really count.