No fanfare but Jurgen’s history boys march on
THIS is Anfield, so the famous sign declares. The old stadium might have looked the same, from afar, last night but nothing felt like normal.
Football in the post-coronavirus world has changed beyond recognition, nowhere more so than the tight streets around Liverpool’s home. Ordinarily for a game of this importance they would have been teeming, red and white, but here you would not have known what was on the line.
Shutters down on the eateries that usually have queues snaking from one end of the street to another, doors closed to the club shop; a huge perimeter fence had been erected to make a sterile moat around the ground.
Strict protocols had d to be adhered to, even for club royalty such as Jan an Molby — a member of f the last title-winning team in 1990 — who had arrived on the wrong side of Stanley Park and had to hot-foot it around the perimeter r to go to the specified d entrance to pick up his accreditation.
It all felt out of kilter, ter, and never more than when the teams arrived. At 6.40pm, a convoy of Mercedes people- carriers rolled into view, 20 in all, carrying each member of the Crystal Palace playing staff – think of the opening to an episode of The Apprentice and you will be able to picture the scene.
Palace had flown up from London in the morning, arriving at Liverpool airport just before noon; they had pre-match in the nearby Titanic Hotel but headed straight back to London — individually, by road — after the game to avoid an unnecessary overnight stay.
Once the squad had gone through a door that is usually reserved for hospitality guests, to avoid any potential contamination, three coaches carrying Liverpool’s squad whizzed up Anfield Road. There were no plumes of smoke, no banners — just 23 fans and 15 police officers.
Your mind had to go back to March 7, when Liverpool were last in Premier League action at Anfield. Jordan Henderson (below) had taken to social media to post a message saying ‘ bring the noise tomorrow, Reds!’ to generate g an atmosphere for Bournemouth’s Bourne visit and got the t response he wanted. wan The T only noise this time tim was the buzz of a police drone, surveying s the local area, and one fan shouting: ‘Come on Reds! Come on!’ N Nobody could have envisaged env potentially their final step towards a coron coronation taking place in such cir circumstances. Still, once the action started the world outside didn’t matter. Liverpool were much sharper, slicker and showed, in flashes, why they have run away with this title.
And this is one salient point to make, now that the moment they have wanted is almost upon them. Who — other than diehards — remembers when, where or how the all- conquering Liverpool teams of 1978-79 or 1987-88 became champions? All that is recalled about them is they turned the title race into a procession.
The class of 2019-20 have done the same. That’s why they will go down in history.