CARDIFF & SWANS BACK IN ACTION
Bluebirds, Swans ready for a new normal... and shot at the play-offs
SWANSEA City and Cardiff City prepare to step into the unknown this weekend as they play their first SkyBet Championship matches since March.
Football was suspended three months ago due to the coronavirus and much will have changed when the players return to competitive action.
There will be no fans present when Swansea play Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium today or when Cardiff City host Leeds tomorrow as they look to enhance their play-off chances. That is just one of the changes confronting both sets of players.
Teams will have enter the pitch one at a time, followed by the match officials, there will be no pre-match handshakes and any goal celebrations must be kept to a minimum. Physios will wear PPE, while footballs, posts and corner flags will be disinfected.
Steve Cooper, whose Swansea side will be one of the first Championship sides into action, kicking-off at 12.30pm, said: “It is a step into the unknown, but our approach is just to focus on ourselves and everything we’re doing in preparation is about us being at our best.
“I think everyone thought that at some stage that we might not get to play these games, when the pandemic was at its worst, it has been awful and still is. We are in a completely different world now, so I think everybody at some stage probably thought this could be in doubt. We are excited to get to play again.”
Cardiff boss Neil Harris will see his side begin 24 hours later, with the visit of Leeds starting at noon tomorrow, and he is also looking forward to finally returning to action
“It feels like a very long time without a game. But since we’ve been back in, Sunday’s fixture does now seem to be coming around quickly.
“Seeing the Premier League football start really hit home what it’s going to be like. We know we’re coming back into the business end of the season, and the players and I want to hit the ground running.
“Leeds are a great test for us and we look forward to it. When you start fresh and look to build, you want to put down a marker. If we play to our capabilities and put in a performance on the day, we’ve got a chance to put down that marker for the rest of the season.”
LIVERPOOL manager Jurgen Klopp admits there was a moment when he feared the club would be denied the chance to win their first league title in 30 years because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Reds hold a 22-point lead over Manchester City and need just two more wins to guarantee a long-awaited first Premier League triumph and a first championship since 1990.
But soon after the season was suspended in March Klopp began to worry it would never happen.
“I didn’t think when we went to lockdown ‘Oh my god, that is our season, we are so close’, because it was not important in that moment,” he said.
“I became worried in the moment when people started talking about ‘null and void’ this season because I was like ‘Wow’.
“I really felt it physically. That would have been really, really hard. We don’t expect to get it as a present so we didn’t want to have a points-per-game basis so we were really happy when it was decided we could play again.
“There were moments when some people brought it up from time to time for different reasons but when it was off the table I felt quite relieved.
“If they had done points per game and we couldn’t have played then we would have been champions but now we aren’t and we have to play for it and that is great, that is how it should be in sports.
“And now we go for it. We don’t think in our mind we are already there.
“It will be tough, tougher than tough, the next few weeks.
“But we will be fine and we will see what we have to celebrate and how we celebrate but these things are only important in the moment when it has finally happened and not before.”
During the lockdown Liverpool’s squad have been at the forefront in supporting a number of campaigns, whether it be captain Jordan Henderson taking a lead role in the Players Together initiative to raise funds for the NHS or the squad as a whole ‘taking a knee’ in a training session at Anfield backing the Black Lives Matter movement.
Elsewhere other players have been notably prominent, not least Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford’s successful campaign to force the government into a u-turn over free school lunches.
Klopp praised all the collective efforts from Premier League players, saying they had the opportunity to be a force for change.
“I am proud of the players but not surprised because I know they do a lot of things without really talking about it,” he added.
“What Marcus Rashford did was unbelievable.”