Gary Taylor-Fletcher column: Liverpool's title success followed by shock news from Blackpool

Obviously it’s been inevitable for some time now but now it’s all done, it’s a great feeling.

It was slightly odd to have it confirmed when Liverpool weren’t playing themselves but it’s happened before with Leicester City the other year.

They still celebrated as a team and we’ve seen similar pictures coming from the Liverpool squad over the last few days.

I just hope the fans can get together at some point and celebrate it properly with a parade – I’m sure there will be one in the following weeks and months when it’s suitable.

To only lose one league game all season, and draw two, is a remarkable achievement.

It’s even better when you consider they only lost one last season as well.

With the way last season finished, with Liverpool losing by one point and only losing one game, everyone had written them off thinking the negative effect would hamper them.

But I’ve seen people refer to them as ‘mentality monsters’ and that’s exactly what they are because they go into every game and every competition thinking they’re going to win everything.

That’s what they’ve done all season in the Premier League and to be that far ahead of a side as good as Manchester City is unbelievable.

You get some people saying it’s a poor league this season but I think it’s just a case of Liverpool being that good. They’ve been dominant.

They didn’t really sign anyone last summer and that didn’t stop them, so who says they can’t be just as strong next season?

Obviously they brought in Takumi Minamino during the January window but other than that they’ve not really signed any big name players for two seasons now, so they’ve got a settled squad.

Whether they improve again, you don’t know, but they’ll definitely be strong.

As for Blackpool, I was really shocked to hear about Jay Spearing leaving – it really surprised me actually.

It’s a shame they couldn’t agree something because of what he’s done for the club over the last three years through all the turmoil on and off the pitch. He’s been an incredible servant.

He’s the type of person you want around the place but unfortunately they’ve come to a deadlock and he’s taken the decision to move on.

It happened to myself, Neal Eardley, Stephen Crainey, Alex Baptiste, Ian Evatt and others, but hopefully they can replace Jay with someone who’s willing to take the mantle of what he was all about.

Jay is perhaps a bit similar to Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson in that he’s probably a bit underrated in terms of what he brings to the team.

Both of them command respect and dominate on the pitch and they’re always seven out of 10, which is exactly what you want from your captain.

There’s all sorts of things that might have happened behind the scenes, you don’t know.

Whether the club has offered a lower contract with everything that has gone on with the coronavirus, who knows?

If that was the case, he might have looked at other players getting big wages and asked for the same or perhaps another club has been in his ear.

At the end of the day, no-one can take away from what he’s done for Blackpool.

He’s only 31 and when you’ve got the experience and fitness that Jay does, it’s very easy to carry on.

I didn’t leave Leicester City until I was 34 or 35, so you can carry on at the top level for as long as possible as long as your body will keep going.

In other news, my old Blackpool team-mate Ian Evatt continues to be strongly linked to the Bolton Wanderers job.

He’s done a magnificent job, so I’m not surprised at all. Getting Barrow promoted, it’s no wonder he’s on the radar of a lot of clubs.

I’m sure there will be a lot of questions he’s asking himself, like what the finances will be like, will he be secure?

With Barrow, they’ve got momentum on their side and I’m sure he’d want to be loyal. But there are a lot of things that will be going through his mind.

It’s hard to say what he should do without knowing all the details. You don’t know about budgets, what the chairman and owners want and that sort of thing.

If the chairman is saying he’ll give him a big budget to try and get promoted, then that might be difficult to turn down.

But it’s all swings and roundabouts, no-one can say what he should do without knowing all the plans from both clubs.

But Bolton is obviously a massive club for that level with the infrastructure they’ve got, so I’m sure it’ll be very, very tempting.