Ex-Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers has said that Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal team should give Liverpool a guard of honour after the Reds secure the title.
Speaking during a recent interview, Rodgers revealed that the Gunners should follow Sir Alex Ferguson’s example many years ago when he told his players to welcome Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea out of the tunnel with warm applause after they won the league.
According to him, such an act by Arsenal would show humility while also inspiring Arteta and his boys to return next year and fight super hard to claim the title that keeps eluding them. After the draw vs Crystal Palace, while Arsenal will play vs Liverpool on the 11th of May, the Reds can wrap up the EPL title if they get at least one point vs Tottenham this Sunday, April 27.
Rodgers disclosed that the move showed Sir Alex Ferguson’s class back in the day, but the moral lesson of the decision was not even to show his sporting side, but to motivate his players to be the ones the opponent will clap for the next season.
“I can never forget when I was at Chelsea as a young coach and, in that first season that Jose was in, they won the title. I remember going to Old Trafford to watch the game that evening and I’m sure the Man United players didn’t want to do it but I’m sure Fergie insisted they did it.
That must have been really, really difficult but it showed you the class of Sir Alex and it showed you the humility of him that another competitor came in and took the title, but it was also sporting that they did that, but also can provide you with great motivation going forward,” he said.
As it stands, should Liverpool win the EPL this Sunday, the fixture list shows us that Chelsea will be the ones to officially give them a guard of honour. And Liverpool fans will be absolutely buzzing with that reality after getting served the opportunity to avenge the Steven Gerrard humiliation 10 years later.
A guard of honour is the way EPL champions have historically been honoured by a team they face in the top flight after it has been confirmed they have won that season’s league title. The tradition involves the opposing team lining up in two lines and clapping their hands as the champions of the season emerge from the tunnel.
It is seen as a mark of respect for the best team in the league that season, but it has never been deemed a compulsory gesture that will attract any official punishment if ignored.
There is definitely no mention of any Guard of Honour requirement in the EPL rule book, so if Chelsea or Arsenal decide to carry on like nothing happened after the Reds lift the title, they cannot be sanctioned.
Of course, Guard of Honour tribute has had its own share of controversies in recent years, and the Reds will be hoping they do not get a repeat of the gesture they were shown by Manchester City following their title win in 2020. Liverpool fans famously blasted MCFC’s “disrespectful” Guard of Honour that saw some players stop clapping before all the Liverpool players had finished coming out of the tunnel.
