When people talk about the ongoing suspension of world sport, my mind automatically gravitates to Liverpool.
I’m not a Liverpool fan, but I can’t help but get caught up in the cruel script that has been handed to them following the shelving of sport as a result of COVID-19.
Rarely do you come across a sporting team so deserving of a title that could simply be denied to them, it’s a nightmare scenario for any club.
Liverpool are currently the cream of world football, fast forward eleven months after their Champions League triumph, they sit top of the Premier League table – 25 points clear of their closest rival in Manchester City (who have just quietly won the last two premier league titles, that’s how good Liverpool currently is.)
The Reds have remarkably won 27 of their 29 games this season, with a surprise loss against Watford and a draw against Manchester United their only blemishes across an almost faultless 2019/20 Premier League campaign.
It’s been a season that has seen Liverpool continue as the dominant force in English football, they’ve been that good that they only need to secure two victories from their last nine remaining games.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s something about seeing a truly great team in action that almost makes you want them to continue to dominate.
In the final weeks we saw of Premier League action, the question wasn’t who was going to win the league – it was instead by how much.
How much were Liverpool going to win their first league title in 30 years by? When will they do it? And how deafening will that Anfield crowd be when it comes to that time.
The footballing world has been resigned to the fact that Liverpool will win the league for so long now, that it almost feels absurd that it quite possibly might not happen.
If a Premier League restart is not plausible, I can absolutely understand the argument for the season to be considered ‘null and void’, as has been done in some other leagues around the world, despite UEFA stating that the Premier League will not suffer the same fate.
Sport needs a result, and it’s almost impossible to crown a champion before they have actually genuinely won.
All things permitting however, there is definitely the proposition that the Premier League could in fact finish, behind closed doors, and Liverpool would be crowned champions in the rightful way.
Otherwise, how would we feel if Liverpool were announced champions on the basis of ‘sporting merit’? Despite not actually completing the season?
I personally don’t like it, but I also don’t like the idea of Liverpool being robbed of a premier league title. It would certainly divide opinion.
What if the circumstances were different? What if the Los Angeles Lakers had swept through everyone in the playoffs and held a 2-0 lead over the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA finals, and had looked completely dominant throughout?
Would the argument be as strong for a complete void of the NBA season given the current arrangement of things?
It’s a completely different sample size but the same principle.
The fact that the Premier League season is 38 games long has become Liverpool’s worst enemy, due to Liverpool still having nine remaining games, there’s still wriggle-room for the naysayers to say, but ‘what if?’.
I don’t necessarily buy into that, they were always going to win it.
Hope has seemed to have shifted in recent days that we could potentially see a Premier League restart at some stage in the coming months, avoiding an unpopular decision to be made one way or another.
After all, the only outcome that will satisfy everyone is if they can win it in the rightful manner.
according to me 