A new date has been set for the rescheduled Merseyside derby, and it leaves Liverpool facing a particularly hectic week during the Premier League title run-in.
The Reds were due to have successive trips to London in late April, travelling to take on Fulham and West Ham respectively. Those visits to the capital have both been moved for live TV coverage, with the derby at Goodison Park now being sandwiched in between.
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The updated fixture details were confirmed on Liverpool’s official website, with the rescheduled dates and times as follows:
⚪️ Fulham (A): Sunday 21 April, 4.30pm
🔵 Everton (A): Wednesday 24 April, 8pm
🟣 West Ham (A): Saturday 27 April, 12.30pm
The latest of those three games could be moved to Sunday 28 April with a 2pm kick-off if Arsenal have a Champions League home fixture on Tuesday 30th.
If there are no further amendments to those fixtures, it leaves Liverpool with an especially difficult week to navigate as they vie for the Premier League title.
It’d be a challenging enough period even if all three of those games were at Anfield, but to be faced with an away triple header inside the space of 144 hours (which’ll see the Reds travel to London, then back to Merseyside, and down to the capital once more) will surely have Jurgen Klopp bristling.
The manager hasn’t minced his words about LFC facing short turnarounds between matches earlier in the season, and he’s not going to like having that thrust upon him again at such a crucial juncture of the campaign.
At least the Everton game being fixed for the earliest available date means that it’ll be out of the way once Liverpool get into May, when the pressure will be at its highest and the margin for error at its slimmest.
Manchester City still have another fixture to be pencilled in on top of their current schedule due to their ongoing FA Cup participation, and they could also face Arsenal in the Champions League semi-finals if they both progress in their respective last eight ties.
If the Reds can come through that away triple header top of the table, or within reach of the summit, the prospect of Virgil van Dijk raising the Premier League trophy at Anfield on 19 May will become an increasingly plausible one.
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