REDS FACE YEAR DELAY FOR £50m KIRKBY BASE

LIVERPOOL have been forced to halt work on their new £50million training ground in Kirkby and could stay at Melwood for another 12 months. It had been the club’s intention to move to the state-of-the-art base at the beginning of July, when the first team and the academy would be on one site, but that plan has now been put on hold due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Though the facility at Kirkby is weeks away from being completed, the rules on social distancing at work mean construction has now stopped. Liverpool completed a £10m deal to sell Melwood, which has been their historic home for more than 60 years, to Torus Housing Trust last August, but a clause in the contract means they can stay another year in the event of unforeseen circumstances. Torus have held discussions with Anfield officials and are prepared to delay their own plans to enable Liverpool to stay at Melwood for as long as they need. The one question would be whether Jurgen Klopp wanted to uproot his squad during the middle of the 2020-21 campaign to move to Kirkby, where work was halted by contractors McLaughlin and Harvey on Wednesday. A club spokesman said: ‘We can confirm the development work on the club’s new training ground at Kirkby has been paused until further notice. ‘McLaughlin and Harvey are closing all their sites to protect the health and safety of their employees and contractors. ‘We will work with McLaughlin and Harvey on developing a new timeline for the project when it is safe and right to do so. The health and safety of everyone involved in the project is the priority.’ Another effect of coronavirus could be that Liverpool delay work on expanding Anfield’s capacity to 61,000. The club had hoped to start the £60million rebuild of the Anfield Road Stand before the end of 2020 in the hope of it being ready for 2022-23. That timeline looks ambitious now given the impact the pandemic is having on the construction industry.