Anfield’s attendance vs. Bournemouth revealed to be less than 50,000

With delays to ongoing works on the Anfield Road stand, Liverpool saw an attendance of less than 50,000 for their meeting with Bournemouth.

This serves as a major financial loss for the club, as progress on the expansion of the stand hit a series of setbacks over the past month.

Contractors The Buckingham Group filed for administration this month, following the announcement of delays to completion of the project until mid-October.

At the time of the delays, Liverpool expected around 51,000 in attendance for the first home game of the season, which saw Bournemouth arrive at Anfield.

But the attendance for the 3-1 victory was 49,699, which is over 11,000 below the stadium’s eventual capacity of around 61,000.

The club had originally planned for the new Anfield Road stand, which will house a further 7,000 supporters, to be completed in time for the start of the campaign.

Liverpool’s request for their first fixture to be as the away side was granted in order to secure further time, but deadlines were not met for various reasons.

Now, the inability to accommodate those 11,000 or more fans could have lost the club well over £500,000 in revenue for every match this continues to be the case.

These losses will continue to be the case every home game until expansions works are completed, which is now likely to be significantly later than mid-October.

In their statement on the situation around The Buckingham Group, Liverpool did not confirm whether the contractors’ administration would impact the timeframe of the redevelopment.

Simply, the club explained that, beyond the Bournemouth game, “our intention is to update all supporters who have a ticket for Aston Villa match at the earliest opportunity.”

Liverpool take on Aston Villa in their fourth game of the season on September 3, by which point it was hoped that the capacity would be increased as part of phased opening, but that now seems extremely unlikely.