Liverpool will play HALF THE SEASON at reduced capacity with new Anfield Road stand still not ready – and there’s now no finish date for work that should have ended before kick-off

Liverpool will have to play the rest of the year at reduced capacity after the club confirmed the upper tier of the Anfield Road Stand will be closed until 2024.

Supporters have been left frustrated by the speed of the £80million redevelopment of Liverpool’s stadium, and the news that there will be no reopening until 2024 will bring further disappointment. Capacity will remain capped at around 51,000 people.

Between now and the end of the calendar year, Liverpool will host Everton in a Merseyside derby and will host Nottingham Forest, Brentford, Fulham, Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle United.

Work to develop the stand began in September 2021 with the aim of being completed before the 2023-24 campaign.

The club had already suffered a setback in its development after announcing that the new upper tier would not be open for the club’s first home match, against Bournemouth on August 19, and would remain closed.

Liverpool’s Anfield Road stand redevelopment faced further delays in completion

The upper tier of Anfield Road End was targeting a reopening before the season opener.

“When Buckingham Group filed for administration, it had an impact on people’s livelihoods and jobs, so I want to make sure we remember and mention that, and I want to thank everyone who worked on the project and everyone who is currently working on the project,” said general manager Billy Hogan.

“And I certainly want to thank all of our supporters for their patience and understanding as we navigate through a situation that, as I mentioned, has been incredibly difficult over the last few months.”

He added: “Until we have visibility into all the necessary information, we will have to maintain the status quo for the remainder of the calendar year.

“This essentially means that the capacity at Anfield will remain the same as in previous home games we have seen this season.

“The lower level of the stand remaining open and the upper level remaining closed until the end of the calendar year.

Last August, Buckingham Group filed for administration and left Liverpool in limbo. A month later, the Group entered administration.

Plans to reopen the upper level in time for the Merseyside derby against Everton – Liverpool’s next match – were subsequently abandoned.

The temperature report that fans who purchased tickets in that area for the match will be contacted by the club.

Liverpool chief executive Billy Hogan addressed fans’ frustrations in an interview today.

“So to go back, obviously, when we got the news in mid-August – August 17 – when Buckingham actually said he intended to officially go into administration, we had about three weeks “during this period where no work could take place on site and we actually had to wait for them to be officially put into administration,” Hogan said.

“They took office on September 4. Essentially, during that sort of three-week period, we worked in the background to try to resolve as many different issues as the possibility of an administration might raise.”

“And then, once Buckingham went into administration, we quickly appointed Rayner Rowen Construction as the new contractor, along with a number of other subcontractors, to get the work back on track as quickly as possible. It was September 4th, we actually started the work and were able to return to the site on September 5th.

“Essentially that process was, over the course of what took about five weeks, to fully assess where the construction program was at that time and then also allow Rayner Rowen to work with our internal teams and gather all the necessary information to make an informed decision on what a revised project completion schedule would be.

No end date has been planned for the work, with reduced capacity for the foreseeable future.

Hogan continues that orders have been placed “for over 80 percent of the remaining work required to complete the stand” with subcontractors who previously worked for the Buckingham Group.

Liverpool actually received special permission from the Premier League before the start of the season to play their opening match away with the aim of completing the project, which will increase the capacity of the land to 61,000 people.

But this proved impossible given the change of contractor and the timetable is now set for early 2024.

“We want to try to be as transparent as possible with the supporters of this project,” Hogan continued.

“Perhaps to go back a little, to July, to the time when we knew there would be a first delay at the start of the season, the schedule we had worked on and the schedule we were told was that ultimately the higher schedule level would be open to some extent for the Everton match, which is ultimately why we proceeded to sell tickets from the Everton match. However, this was based on the information provided to us at the time.

“The reality is that we are just beginning to clearly understand what the reality of the delays is.”