You know you’re fairly late to the party when you arrive just as last drinks are being served and they’ve already binned the leftover prawn sandwiches.
Fans started drifting back to their home venues for the Premier League fixtures in midweek, albeit in modest numbers, but with Government dispensation to do so. A maximum of 10,000 will today be admitted to the major stadia, with lower numbers for those with smaller capacities.
Leicester will have 8,000 at the King Power for their meeting with Spurs. Chelsea have the knotty assignment of Aston Villa away from home.
The two remaining slots in the Champions League are up for grabs between Liverpool, Leicester and Chelsea. It is at Anfield, Villa Park and the King Power, therefore, that the main business of the day will be decided before 2020/21 is wrapped in a brown box and taken to gather dust in the archives.
The 10,000 in Anfield will have the privilege of witnessing Liverpool qualify should everything go according to plan. To do so, their team merely has to dispose of Crystal Palace. As privileges go, they have dined on better fare than that at the hallowed venue.
Beating one of the division’s cannon fodder to finish third, or fourth, is not the stuff that dreams are made of on Merseyside. This time last year they were in lockdown purgatory but it was strictly a case of heaven can wait: their coronation as champions was more or less a formality once play resumed.
Liverpool have not worn the crown well. This has been a chastening season for them. It was threatening to become embarrassing when they lost at home to a Fulham team destined for the drop, on March 7. Burnley, another team flirting with relegation, had also shocked them at Anfield in January.
It ended Liverpool’s home record of 68 games unbeaten in the league, dating back to April 2017. When Fulham beat them in March it was their sixth consecutive home defeat in all competitions. Never mind the title, could the champions even make it back into the top four before the season ended?
“That’s not really my concern at the moment,” replied an ashen-faced Jurgen Klopp when asked the question après Fulham.
“I cannot think about that. We have to win football games. We have to win one football game. That would be helpful already,” he added in mordant tone.
It is his concern now, as it was then. He cannot think about anything else today.
They did well enough to pull out of that tailspin back in the early months of this year and get their bearings again. Since Fulham they have played nine games in the league — seven wins, two draws.
The margin for error was skinny to the point of emaciation. Last Sunday they were about to drop two points they could not afford when Alisson Becker popped up with that ridiculous winner against West Brom in the 95th minute.
They should get the job done today. Even a draw might do, depending on results at the King Power and Villa Park. But if a draw is all they can muster then they cannot complain if the cookie doesn’t crumble their way elsewhere. On paper at least, a win here is as close to a foregone conclusion as you will get in this league.
They are up against punchbag opponents who have nothing to play for bar a sentimental send-off for their beloved gaffer, Roy Hodgson.
They, on the other hand, have a place at Europe’s top table to play for. A win will get rid of all their permutations relating to Leicester and Chelsea.
They shouldn’t need a single supporter in the stadium to help them complete this bit of business. The fact that they’ll have 10,000 is being touted as extra insurance, an engine of emotion to harness if they’re faltering on the pitch.
Liverpool loyalists will claim that no club has suffered more from the absence of their fabled partisans during the pandemic. But Klopp at his press conference on Friday seemed to be hinting at mixed blessings in this regard.
He felt it necessary to point out that nobody should start getting frustrated if they haven’t taken the lead in the first minute. He appeared to be apprehensive that this might be a scenario.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder; maybe presence makes the heart more nervous.
Still, no. It is inconceivable that Liverpool’s players won’t finish the job and close the gates for the season with a bang not a whimper. If there is to be any melodrama, it should be elsewhere in the midlands.