City’s Gundogan Agrees That Liverpool Deserve Everything

It’s been three or so weeks of self-isolation (I think. What is time, anyway?) and we’ve gotten to the point where we’re interviewing footballers from rival clubs about how maybe the season should just be called already and the cup should be handed over to us. Manchester City’s Ilkay Gundogan definitely believes so when German broadcaster ZDF decided to talk to him about it this weekend.

“For me, [Liverpool getting the title] would be okay, yes,” Gundogan said. “You have to be fair as a sportsperson. There are different opinions. For clubs who have had a very good season, it obviously wouldn’t be nice if it was cancelled now. On the other hand, for clubs who aren’t doing as well and are maybe in the relegation places, an abandonment would obviously suit them.”

A pithy summary and presumably a good exercise for the midfielder to keep up with the arduous task of giving us post-game soundbites.

It makes sense that we’ve reached the point of just asking every single relevant person what they think should happen this season. It also makes complete sense that players—including Liverpool’s rivals—are fine with just giving the trophy over to the Reds at this point.

And here’s the other thing: Liverpool’s performances through the season don’t deserve the asterisk that the league title will definitely come with. Liverpool played astoundingly well and deserve that to be recognised. But no matter what happens, this season is definitely going to come with caveats and pretty much any celebration (even one that’s 30 years in the making) is going to be overshadowed by the global crisis we’re in.