Fans fork out to witness Klopp’s final bow at Anfield
It was at 8.0 on Friday morning that Liverpool put on sale tickets for the rest of their season and, naturally enough, the ones for their final home game, against Wolves on May 19th, proved especially popular – not least because there’s a chance it could be a title decider. They were priced between €35 and €70 and sold out almost immediately.
Now, these tickets were always going to appear on ‘re-sale’ sites, at prices way, way above face value, because they’re scarce enough any way for Anfield, the bulk of the stadium’s 60,000 seats occupied by season ticket holders.
But when it was announced three hours later that the Wolves game would be Jurgen Klopp’s last at Anfield? Well, according to the Mirror, if you wanted a ticket for just behind the dugout in the Main Stand, which would have a face value of €70, one particular re-sale site was charging . . . are you sitting comfortably? . . . €21,000. Add in VAT and the service fee and the total cost could come to €28,650. Seriously.
An adult’s season ticket for The Kop, which is where you’d imagine most of the faithful would like to be posted for Klopp’s last home game, costs €870. As of Saturday, the cheapest ticket spotted on the re-sale market for just that single Wolves game was around €2,000.
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Wolves fans, incidentally, have been allocated 3,000 tickets for the game. You’d be guessing the away section that day will have a red-ish hue, with a lot of newly minted Wolves folk watching the game back home on their tellies.
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Word of mouth
“I honestly wish it was my wife leaving me and not Jurgen.”
A distraught caller to talKSPORT last Friday. He was probably served his divorce papers later in the day.
“I remember looking at it and thinking ‘why and how?’. He used to have like five slices of toast and a mountain of baked beans. I tried it once, it didn’t go well for me.”
Jermaine Jenas on feeling a touch windy after trying Gareth Bale’s pre-match meal.
“He’ll be playing Chesney Hawkes and a bit of ‘Glory Glory Man United’. That just shows the depth that the music business has sunk to.”
Noel Gallagher on hearing that the festival his High Flying Birds will headline in August also features in its line-up a certain, eh, DJ: Gary Neville.
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Parker unimpressed by Kane’s heroics
Harry Kane finally ended his goal drought on Saturday when he scored for Bayern Munich against Augsburg, bringing his season’s tally to 23 – reminder: it’s only January. Until then, he’d gone an entire two Bundesliga games without scoring. Two!
How impressed is former England international Paul Parker by his form?
“As much as I’m not a big fan of Kane, you have got to respect the amount of goals he’s scoring. The problem is that he is not good to have around. The only thing he is focusing on is beating Lewandowski’s record. That’s the only thing he cares about.
“He is very selfish. Everyone is laughing about him in England. I said it when he was at Tottenham, they would be better off without him. I was right. When Kane is at a club, everything is about him. Everything.”
That, you have to say, is a rather unique chunk of punditry, like Kane’s 280 goals for Spurs didn’t actually benefit the team, and his 23 for Bayern are dragging them down. If Paul’s name was Pauline, there’d be smoke coming out of Joey Barton’s tweets.
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More word of mouth
“I’m a little bit pleased, I’ll sleep better the nights before we play against Liverpool. Jurgen has been the best rival I ever had in my life. I think the Premier League is going to miss him – the charisma, the personality and especially the way his teams play.”
Pep Guardiola doffs his cap.
“It regularly has the match day atmosphere of a mausoleum on a rainy Monday. Quite fitting as there is a cemetery just behind the main stand.”
Pat Nevin on Stamford Bridge feeling a bit dead this weather.
“In the next two years I see this league becoming one of the best in the world, if not the best.”
Is that a come-and-get-me plea from Romelu Lukaku to the Saudi Pro League? Possibly, yes.
In words
“I realised that my resources are not endless . . . we are not young rabbits any more and we don’t jump as high as we did.”
Safe to say, Liverpool fans were caught on the hop by Jurgen Klopp’s announcement on Friday.
In numbers
60.73 - The percentage of games won by Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp, the highest of any manager in the club’s history.
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