ASTERISKS AND THE BIG FIGHT Klopp: People say there should be an asterisk against this season... yes, there should be, because it is EVEN HARDER against such a great City team
JURGEN KLOPP smiled when the question of an asterisk against the season arose.
His response was a typically charismatic answer to those who claim this will not be a ‘proper’ title win.
Klopp said his Liverpool team, should they lift the title, will deserve an asterisk because they will have done it in impossibly difficult circumstances.
“If it happens and we do become champions and you meet someone who says: ‘Yeah, but an asterisk’, then we can tell them: ‘An asterisk? Rightly so, because it was really difficult and really special.’
“That’s why we will enjoy the little asterisk there.”
Klopp has clearly heard all the banter, all the claims from rival supporters who seem to revel in the thought that Liverpool’s impending title triumph after a 30-year wait will somehow not be authentic.
He clearly doesn’t care if his side get the trophy in a car park outside Anfield or in a bio-sealed bubble somewhere in New Zealand, just so long as they complete the quest which was interrupted by the global pandemic.
Having the season paused when so close to glory was tough, he admitted, so he is untroubled by the claims of those like Gary Neville (below) who want an asterisk by Liverpool’s name. In fact he even had to look up what the word meant.
“I don’t pay much attention usually,” he said, “but I have had a lot of time to read and I had to google the word ‘asterisk.’ I only knew the word from the
Asterix comics!
“This has been most difficult season to become champions. It is an interrupted season, which has never happened before, and it will be historical because it is a year that we will never forget. Hopefully it is the right way – out on the pitch and not in a committee room. “Yes I was worried,” he said. “I felt quite tense during the lockdown when they were having discussions about the season. I became worried when they started talking about voiding the season. I felt it physically. It would have been really, really, hard.
“It would have been a massive, massive blow for us. When it was off the table I felt quite relieved.
“We worked so hard for