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Liverpool face Chelsea today in the first of four victory lap Premier League fixtures having won the title last week.
The Reds secured their status as English champions with a 5-1 win against Tottenham, with Liverpool now allowed to take their foot off the gas and to waltz their way to the summer break, where big plans will be in store for the Anfield side.
As a result of Liverpool winning the league before the season is out, the Reds will receive a guard of honour in their final four fixtures from their opponents, the first of which will be Chelsea today at Stamford Bridge.
And defender Marc Cucurella has now shared what he thinks about giving a guard of honour to a Premier League rival in Liverpool.
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Speaking to the Daily Mail, the £60m Spanish international noted how Liverpool ‘deserve’ a guard of honour today for winning the Premier League, with Cucurella seemingly not fussed about the pre-match ritual, unlike other figures in the game.
Peter Crouch and Rio Ferdinand are both against a guard of honour, with both players having to do them for rival sides during their years in the Premier League, with Liverpool giving Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea one almost ten years ago.
Yet for Cucurella, the former Brighton & Hove Albion man is seemingly not focused on giving Liverpool a guard of honour, with the defender set on winning the match for Chelsea, who remain in the hunt for a UEFA Champions League spot.
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Cucurella said: “They won the league, they deserve it, if we need to do it, we do it.
This is before the game, once the game starts, we go for our objectives, we will fight with everything and for the three points.”
A guard of honour is a strange tradition in English football that has led to plenty of jokes between fanbases in watching the sheer delight of watching their side being applauded onto the pitch by the rival team.
And for Liverpool, three of their final four Premier League matches could result in such stories for years to come, with Chelsea and Arsenal traditional rivals for the Reds with Crystal Palace the team who infamously stopped Brendan Rodgers from winning the title at Selhurst Park in 2014.
Indeed, Liverpool’s squad will revel in watching the guard of honour take place, and the Anfield side will hope that they will be celebrated in such a way again next season if they can reclaim the Premier League title.
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