For this current campaign, Liverpool’s matchday revenue won’t be as high as the club had anticipated.

With Buckingham Group, the construction company working on the £80m redevelopment of the Anfield Road End having collapsed into administration, and the Reds forced to engage another contractor to complete the work, landing on Preston-based Rayner Rowen, the work remains unfinished.

The saga has seen Liverpool faced, for the time being, with attendances being capped at around 50,000, some 11,000 less than what was planned for and 4,000 less than what they had last season during the period that the work was going on around the previous structure.

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On Thursday the club announced that an important milestone had been reached, with part of the upper tier of the Anfield Road End to be open for the game with Manchester United on December 17, subject to internal emergency conditions test managed in conjunction with Liverpool City Council and a public test event, which is expected to take place during week commencing December 11.

More work is required to complete the redevelopment and have the stand fully operational, but having clarity on the partial opening of the stand points to a full opening not being too far away, meaning that the more demand for tickets can be satisfied and the club can start to make its way towards breaking a £100m barrier that only Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have so far managed to achieve.

The collapse of the Buckingham Group and subsequent delays to the completion of the redevelopment work have had a financial impact on the club, with capacity 18% down on the usual £4.2m per game, a figure of around £750,000 can be gleaned as the potential loss from each game when compared to what would have been expected for the start of the season. Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan initially made his hope known that the club could have October as a timescale, although after assessing the amount of work that Rayner Rowen needed to undertake, and with the requirement for test events to be factored in, a revised timescale was worked towards, with January the hope.

Matchday revenues are something that club owners Fenway Sports Group have sought to drive up ever since they acquired the club for £300m back in 2010. In 2016 the comprehensive £120m Main Stand redevelopment was completed to take the capacity up to 54,000 from 45,500, adding state of the art facilities and raising the offering in terms of hospitality considerably.

When the Anfield Road End is completed it will have capacity at 61,000, a figure some 34% higher than what it was when FSG arrived at Anfield 13 years ago. To look across what the rest of the so-called ‘big six’ were doing over the last decade shows the financial impact of the investment in the stadium, with only Tottenham Hotspur’s £1bn, world-class new 63,000-seater home delivering a greater boost to matchday revenue away from Liverpool.

One of the big decisions that FSG had to make when they acquired the Reds was whether or not to keep the team at Anfield or find a new stadium. Having had to make a similar decision when they bought the Boston Red Sox in 2002 and choosing to remain at the iconic, if somewhat tired Fenway Park, the ownership group embarked on a project to raise revenues by developing their existing surroundings.

Last year at the Sportico Invest in Sports Conference in New York, where the ECHO were present, FSG partner and Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy said: “We found an unbelievable facility, a venue that means so much more than football to the community. It is literally a place where generations have shared memories and made connections and bonds unlike anywhere else in sport if you think about what Anfield means in Liverpool.

“That said, when we arrived it needed some significant investment. There was no premium offering to speak of, not a lot of focus on food and beverage, and gameday experience to say the least.

"There had been talk of maybe a dual build with Everton and maybe building one venue for both clubs. I can assure you that was a bad idea, it would have been a bad idea for us to come out in support of it for reasons that may seem obvious now to people who understand global football.

"We made the decision to do exactly what we did at Fenway Park, preserve Anfield, protect it and expand it. We have invested several hundred million pounds into the facility, we have created a new main stand, an Anfield Road stand that is coming online, all inside the venue to bring people to the games earlier and to enhance the experience that they have there.

"It is obviously a lot more difficult when you are managing the design and construction when you are 4,000 miles away, so we opened a commercial office in Liverpool and in London to manage the process.

"I think it has been received well. We are still small in the Premier League in terms of the size of the venue and there is still a lot of frustrated demand for tickets and access, but we think that's OK given how special the venue is."

For the 2021/22 financial year the Reds delivered £87m in terms of matchday revenue, behind only Spurs (£106m) and Manchester United (£111m). The goal for FSG with Liverpool is to break through the £100m barrier when they realise completion of the whole rebuild. Over the last decade there has been a rise from £45m to £87m for the Reds, with that likely to be over the £100m mark by the time the 2024/25 financial year is made public. Looking at the period (via analysis from Swiss Ramble) between 2013 and 2022 it is an increase of 93.3%, a financial rise of £42m per year.

Spurs, through a transformative move from White Hart Lane to their new home, have seen a jump from £40m to £106m, an increase of £66m (163%) over the same period. But to look at the other sides the rise has been minimal. Manchester United saw an increase of £1m in 10 years in terms of matchday revenue, while Arsenal and Chelsea have both seen decreases to the tune of £13m (from £93m to £79m) and £2m (£71m to £69m), respectively. Only Manchester City, who saw a rise of £15m (38%) to £54m have improved their position.

Liverpool’s rise is only set to continue due because of the work scheduled for completion at Anfield. Maximising revenue opportunities was something that was key to FSG’s plan when they took over and the work that has been undertaken will take them close to the kind of revenues that are being generated by clubs who have spent £1bn on an entirely new stadium. Add to that the plan to host more music concerts and other non-football events, such as the three Taylor Swift and two Pink gigs next year, and the revenue potential will continue to grow for the Reds as Anfield remains one of the most valuable sporting stadiums in the world, retaining its heritage as well as being brought up to speed to make the most of modern technology.