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Liverpool could be crowned title winners tonight; Sonia O’Sullivan on last days of lockdown

The Morning Sports Briefing: Keep ahead of the game with ‘The Irish Times’ sports team

And so, after 30 years without a league title, Liverpool's drought may finally end in the strange surroundings of an empty Stamford Bridge tonight. After a ruthless dismantling of Crystal Palace last night thanks to goals from Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah, Fabinho and Sadio Mané, Jürgen Klopp's side will be crowned Premier League champions tonight if Manchester City fail to beat Chelsea. If City are to win and make Liverpool wait a little bit longer, they will have to do so without Sergio Agüero who may miss the rest of the domestic season with a knee injury suffered against Burnley on Monday night. Moving on to our Italia 90 Revisited series and this morning Emmet Malone speaks to Niall Quinn about his transformative goal against Holland and how, in his own words, it was the making of him. And in our dip back into the archives, Peter Byrne reflects on that performance against Holland and ponders the question whether the players being allowed to see their wives and girlfriends beforehand made any difference.

In golf, the PGA Tour will continue with the Travelers Championship this week despite a number of withdrawals – including the likes of Brooks Koepka, Graeme McDowell and last week's winner Webb Simpson – because of Covid-19 concerns. Commissioner Jay Monahan spoke last night about how the Tour plans to tighten its safety protocols while reiterating that the number of positive tests is still quite low in the scheme of things.

In our women in sport pages this week, Sonia O'Sullivan reflects on the last days of life in lockdown and how, despite some positives, she is looking forward to sport making its return. Meanwhile, Joanne O'Riordan hands her column over to her brother this morning to tell his story about being a gay man involved in GAA and how incusive the organisation can be.

On to GAA and with clubs reopening around the country, Ian O'Riordan visits Stars of Erin to see how they plan to get things back on track. "We'd a meeting here last night and we've put that out today that we need a supervisor, and what they'll be responsible to do, which is to inform their team of all the protocols, keep attendance sheets, sanitising, all that. The balls, the gear, the cones, our first aid kits, all of that has to be properly cleaned," explains secretary Gaye O'Brien.

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Finally to tennis and the fallout from Novak Djokovic's controversial Adria Tour continues to rage on with the world number one becoming alienated by fellow players after a number of competitors, including Djokovic himself, tested positive for Covid-19.

Ruaidhrí Croke

Ruaidhrí Croke

Ruaidhrí Croke is a sports journalist with The Irish Times