Lack of Anfield crowd will be a big loss admits Klopp

LIVERPOOL boss Jurgen Klopp insists the spectacle of empty stadiums should take nothing away from teams if the Premier League gets the go-ahead to resume.

Top-flight players are returning to training this week after the clubs voted unanimously to do so at a shareholders’ meeting on Monday, the first significant step in the return to play protocols.

Any possibility of the league re-starting sometime next month will be behind closed doors, and while Klopp acknowledged playing at an empty Anfield was not ideal, the German is certain the standards his players showed before coronavirus led to football being suspended in this country in mid-March will remain the same.

“The perfect package of football is a full, packed Anfield stadium, two really good teams, big fight, super goals and at the end Liverpool win,” he said.

“That’s the perfect matchday. So, a lot of these things are possible but Anfield will not be packed for a while. So that’s what we have to accept.

“When we start, it goes really again for everything. The competition will make the intensity.”

Liverpool are 25 points clear of City and need just two more wins to claim the title.

Klopp continued: “It’s not about, ‘Oh, Liverpool have to win two games.’ By the way, we have to win two games when we start - it’s not ‘only two’, it’s two. It’s not less or more. We have to win them. We want to play the best possible football, better than other teams fighting for the Champions League, fighting to stay in the league.”