Photo credit should read GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images
Liverpool fans will have to wait until Sunday to watch our team play, but EPL action is back tonight with two interesting matches.
It has been more than three months since we’ve been able to watch our favorite team play—one that also happens to be the best in the world. For my daughter, it’s literally more than half a lifetime since she’s been able to watch Liverpool. Terrible.
Of course, Liverpool fans will have to wait a little bit longer, but Premier League action is back tonight!
The league is starting with the four teams who have a game in hand; Aston Villa will host Sheffield United, and Manchester City are facing off against Arsenal. Two games with implications for the top, bottom, and middle of the table (soz Arsenal).
I’m so excited, I’m even bantering again! Oh, that felt good! Wait…let me try another: Manchester City will have a big advantage tonight playing in front of an empty stadium. Boom! Got ‘em.
With a win, Sheffield United will go ahead of Manchester United for the final Champions League spot! Is this banter or merely stating facts? I don’t know. But it’s great. I’m excited.
I’m not one of those Premier League stans. It might be the best or most competitive league in the world, but that doesn’t concern me. I care first and foremost about Liverpool. And Liverpool play in the Premier League. If Liverpool are the big, shinning star in the middle of my football fandom universe, the other, lesser, EPL teams are orbiting the closest around it.
There are obvious implications for Liverpool’s title hopes as well. If Arsenal do a very unorthodox thing for North London teams to do—help us in any way, shape, or form—Liverpool could win the title at Goodison Park against Everton in the Merseyside Derby.
Hopefully it is actually safe for the players to return. Early testing seems to indicate as much, but we will see. Regardless, Premier League football has been missed by hundreds of millions worldwide, and at a time when they needed the distraction the most.
We’re still far from being “out of the woods” with this COVID-19 pandemic. And the wide scale social unrest from racially motivated police violence has added another horrible layer to the shit sandwich we’ve been served in 2020. But the return of football will undoubtedly help lighten the mental and emotional burden of it all. If only for 90 minutes at a time.
Enjoy the football tonight. And stay safe.
