With the Anfield Road stand’s redevelopment taking longer than anticipated, Liverpool’s CEO reassured fans that the delayed reopening would go smoothly.
After almost two years of work, supporters were set to move into the newly expanded Anfield Road end at the start of the upcoming season.
This has now been delayed, though, and there will instead be a phased reopening.
Speaking to This Is Anfield, Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan described the expansion as “a very complex project.”
He said: “We launched in September of 2021, so in the middle of the pandemic, which was always a sort of an aggressive push forward, but we decided that that was the right time to do it.
“We’ve been working really closely with Buckingham, our contractor, and so this was always a very complex project.
“If you go back to 2016, if you recall, we actually had to move our second match, which was supposed to be a home match, we moved it to an away match. We played three away games at the start of 2016.”
Due to the phased reopening, This Is Anfield understands there will only be about 51,000 in attendance at Liverpool’s first home game, against Bournemouth.
Hogan added: “The fact that we were able to open the lower tier for the Bournemouth match, I think is a good thing, obviously.
“And then, you know, we’ll open it incrementally over the course of the next several weeks, working very closely with Buckingham and Liverpool City Council to make sure that we do that in the appropriate way.”
It is a good thing that there is at least going to be an increase in capacity over the first few home matches, but supporters will be frustrated it wasn’t finished for the start of the season.
The new completion date is now hoped to be in time for the Merseyside Derby on October 21.
