Fireworks exploded from the roof. Red smoke filled the air. Family members applauded as players, one by one, lifted the trophy.
Yet Liverpool’s Premier League title-winning celebrations in 2020 could hardly be described as a party. For one, no fans were allowed inside a mostly empty Anfield to witness it because of restrictions in place during the pandemic.
Five years later, it will all be so different.
Liverpool is again set to be crowned as English champion and, this time, its storied stadium will be filled — inside and no doubt on the concourses and roads outside — with supporters ready to commemorate the team’s achievement.
Only one point is needed against Tottenham on Sunday for Liverpool to win the league.
In 2020, securing the title ended a 30-year drought. In 2025, it will mark another significant milestone: Tying fierce rival Manchester United’s record of 20 English top-flight championships.
Expect the party to go on for some time, too. Liverpool fans have been waiting for this.
As the coronavirus raged in 2020, they were shut out of Anfield as Jordan Henderson did what no Liverpool captain had done since 1990 — lift the league trophy. Only a late government reprieve ensured players at least had a few family members inside the stadium. The select few granted invitations had to wear face masks.
Some fans made their presence felt by setting off pyrotechnics in nearby streets but it wasn’t what they imagined a title party would feel like.
Do the business against Spurs and Liverpool would clinch the title with four games to go, ensuring an unassailable advantage over second-placed Arsenal.
For Arne Slot, it will be a Premier League title in his first season in English soccer. Only four managers — Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Manuel Pellegrini and Antonio Conte — have ever done that.
And there will be a huge sense of satisfaction at ending the four-year hegemony of Manchester City, whose big drop-off this season has allowed Liverpool to fill the void.
The Reds have done so in impressive fashion, losing just twice — to Nottingham Forest and Fulham — and racking up 24 wins from 33 games.
When United sealed title No. 20 in 2013 to go two clear of Liverpool, it felt like that gap would only get wider. Liverpool, after all, finished in seventh place that season.
Instead, United has regressed in the post-Alex Ferguson era — the team is in 14th place in the Premier League — and Liverpool has regained its status as an English and European giant, first under Jurgen Klopp and under his successor, Slot.
It's Liverpool which could pull clear now, especially with City needing to rebuild, the current Arsenal team yet to prove it can win a major trophy under Mikel Arteta, and United in crisis.
Liverpool will celebrate this title long and hard, but knows this can be just the start of a period of success.
By the time, Liverpool attempts to wrap up the Premier League, the finalists for the FA Cup will be known.
Hours earlier Sunday, Man City will take on Forest in the second semifinal at Wembley Stadium. On Saturday, Aston Villa will meet Crystal Palace.
Of the four semifinalists, only City has won a trophy this century. Forest's last piece of silverware was the English League Cup in 1990, Villa's was in 1996 (also the League Cup), while Palace — a beaten FA Cup finalist in 1990 and 2016 — has never won a major trophy.
Ipswich is set to become the third and final team to be relegated, joining Southampton and Leicester back in the Championship.
Ipswich — in third-to-last place — is 15 points from safety with five games remaining, so it's a matter of when not if.
Even beating Newcastle away on Saturday — which is unlikely in itself — might not be enough, with fourth-to-last Wolverhampton at home to Leicester that day and needing only a point to ensure survival.
If Ipswich is demoted, it means the three promoted teams will all have been relegated for the second straight season.
Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah warms up prior to the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and West Ham United at Anfield in Liverpool, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)
Liverpool's manager Arne Slot celebrates at the end of the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and West Ham United at Anfield in Liverpool, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)
Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and West Ham United at Anfield in Liverpool, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota's Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever.
In a dramatic scene similar to those playing out across Minneapolis, agents captured a man in the home just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily armed federal agents. Along the residential street, protesters honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt the operation.
Video of the clash taken by The Associated Press showed some agents pushing back protesters while a distraught woman later emerged from the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man. Signed by an immigration officer, the document — unlike a warrant signed by a judge — does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. A warrant signed by an immigration officer only authorizes arrest in a public area.
Immigrant advocacy groups have conducted extensive “know-your-rights” campaigns urging people not to open their doors unless agents have a court order signed by a judge.
But within minutes of ramming the door in a neighborhood filled with single-family homes, the handcuffed man was led away.
More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News on Sunday that the administration would send additional federal agents to Minnesota to protect immigration officers and continue enforcement.
The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — is bracing for what is next after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer on Wednesday.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners Sunday in the neighborhood where Good was killed, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but residents remained anxious. On Monday, Minneapolis public schools will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said that the investigation into Good's shooting death should not be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened," Smith said on ABC’s "This Week."
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
"That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn't be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests in cities across the country over the weekend, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Oakland, California.
Contributing were Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis; Thomas Strong in Washington; Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio.
A woman gets into an altercation with a federal immigration officer as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A federal immigration officer deploys pepper spray as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A family member, center, reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bystanders are treated after being pepper sprayed as federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A family member reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Federal agents look on after detaining a person during a patrol in Minneapolis, Minn., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)
Bystanders react after a man was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand near a memorial at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
A man looks out of a car window after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Border Patrol agents detain a man, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
People shout toward Border Patrol agents making an arrest, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Protesters react as they visit a makeshift memorial during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
