English Premier League set to return on June 17

The English Premier League will return to play on June 17, with the season to be completed in six weeks.

The Premier League will return from its pandemic hiatus on June 17, the league confirmed on Thursday.

The first matches back will be Aston Villa facing Sheffield United and Manchester City hosting Arsenal, two games that were previously postponed or rescheduled, meaning that after June 17, a Wednesday, every team will have played an even 29 matches. Then all 30 clubs will be back in action that weekend for Matchday 30.

The English top flight has been on hold since mid March. On March 12, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta became the highest-profile figure in the game to test positive, followed shortly by Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi announcing a positive test later that same night.

Those announcements brought on an emergency league meeting the following morning, which ended with the Premier League – and all soccer in England – being put on hold as of March 13.

After more than two months away, the game has slowly returned around the world. The Bundesliga has led the charge, but other top leagues are getting closer to a return as well.

Premier League clubs approved a return to small-group training on May 18 and then approved contact training on Wednesday.

Liverpool have all but clinched the league title, sprinting out to a 25-point lead over second-place Manchester City.

“The competition will make the intensity,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp told the club’s website when training returned. “So it’s not about, ‘Oh, Liverpool have to win two games.’ By the way, we have to win two games when we start – it’s not ‘only two’, it’s two. It’s not less or more. We have to win them, it’s not that we want to win the last two or whatever and come through somehow. We want to play the best possible football, better than other teams fighting for the Champions League, fighting to stay in the league.”

While Liverpool need just two wins to claim their first league title in 30 years – and their first time lifting the Premier League trophy – there is plenty to be settled elsewhere in the table.

Third-place Leicester City and fourth-place Chelsea currently occupy the Champions League places behind Liverpool and City. But Manchester United, Wolves, Sheffield United, Tottenham and Arsenal are all within eight points of fourth.

At the bottom of the table, eight points separate last-place Norwich City and Brighton in 15th. Bournemouth and Aston Villa currently join Norwich in the relegation places.