Liverpool left to wait and wonder after coronavirus strikes

Jurgen Klopp’s team needed Manchester City to lose to Burnley on Saturday to give it a chance to seal the deal at its local rivals Everton two days later.

Regardless of whether it would have happened at Goodison Park or over the coming weeks, its first top-flight title for 30 years was a mere formality.

But now fans are wondering when, or even if, it will be crowned champion after the coronavirus laid waste to the global sporting calendar.

The message coming from Liverpool is that there are more important issues than football to talk about, even with the club tantalisingly close to glory.

“I’ve said before that football always seems the most important of the least important things,” Klopp said in a statement on Friday.

“Today, football and football matches really aren’t important at all.

“If it’s a choice between football and the good of the wider society, it’s no contest. Really, it isn’t.”

Klopp’s stance won him the support of World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who thanked him for his “powerful message”.

Liverpool supporters, desperate to reclaim its position at the pinnacle of the English game, agree with their German manager, saying the pandemic overshadows football.

Liverpool has stumbled in recent weeks, knocked out of the Champions League by Atletico Madrid and dumped out of the FA Cup by Chelsea.

But it has been peerless in the Premier League, leaving its rivals in its wake to race 25 points clear of defending champion Manchester City.

With Alisson Becker in goal, Virgil van Dijk marshalling the defence and its devastating front three of Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, Klopp’s men have been irresistible.

Paul Hayward, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said Liverpool should be crowned champion for the 19th time even if no more games are played.

“If a season ends too soon, its natural winning line is the point it reached before the halt was called: emphatically so, 29 games into a 38-match campaign, which is a respectable distance,” he wrote.