The light at the end of the Anfield tunnel is starting to grow for Liverpool.
During what was an unusually busy mid-June week inside the club, the news that the green light has now been given on the Anfield Road expansion plan was huge.
It was announced on Tuesday that Liverpool Council's planning committee had given official approval to a further 7,000 seats as the £60m development project to take the capacity up to 61,000 took its biggest step yet.
Club owners Fenway Sports Group have been keen for some time to explore the various avenues available to them in their efforts to increase the size of the stadium and Tuesday's news was viewed as a "huge milestone" in the words of managing director, Andy Hughes.
Later that day, Liverpool also confirmed that close to 8,000 rail seats were to be installed in time for the new Premier League season.
A total of 7,800 will be inserted with safety rails by August, with around 1,800 being positioned at the back of the Kop.
The remaining 6,000 to be placed in the lower tier of the Anfield Road.
Meanwhile, the recent delaying of the Government's so-called "Freedom Day" will not, for now, have an adverse affect on Liverpool's plans for Anfield's grand re-opening.
On the week that the Premier League fixtures were released, the ECHO understands the club are still planning for a full return of 54,000 supporters when the action gets underway in mid-August.
A visit from Burnley on August 21 will be the potential date that Anfield will be full for the first time since March 2020.
The 10,000 fans inside the ground on May 22, when a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace secured a third-place finish, whet the appetite of what is to follow, but it's been far too long since the Kop was in full voice.
So, just maybe, the visit of Burnley is the perfect fixture for Liverpool.
After all, it was the Clarets who were the only team to take points away from Anfield during the season-before-last's remarkable campaign.
Seventeen wins were punctured by the 1-1 draw with Sean Dyche's side as the chance of becoming Premier League Centurions fell by the wayside in the closing weeks for the then newly-confirmed English champions.
But if that sleepy Saturday afternoon in July last year is consigned to history, perhaps the events of a cold Thursday in January are not.
Burnley fully exposed the brittle confidence of an injury-hit Liverpool at the start of the year with a shock 1-0 win that ended a near four-year unbeaten home record for Jurgen Klopp in the Premier League.
It kick-started the worst run of home form in the club's history as they went on to lose the following five to bring up a half-dozen successive defeats for the first time in 129 years.
But if those lingering feelings of revenge have faded since those games against the Lancashire side, the prospect of a full house again will be a heartening one for the entire squad.
Particularly those who are yet to feel the full force of a unified Anfield.
Thiago Alcantara is the perfect candidate as far as that train of thought goes.
The Spaniard had played himself into the best form of his brief Liverpool tenure in the closing stages of last season, purring, at times, with his wide variety of passes.
The Spain international, though, is yet to enthral a crowd larger than a fairly meagre 10,000 as a Liverpool player.
The Palace game will have given him a sip of what is to come, but he must be keen to experience it in full alongside colleagues who he thought he would be lining up next to a lot more frequently than he has so far.
As questions continue to burn about the wisdom of allowing Gini Wijnaldum to leave on a free, Thiago will be hopeful that the Reds will not be struck down further by any sort of injury crisis that afflicted them so badly last time out.
The impending returns of Virgil van Dijk, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez will allow Fabinho and Jordan Henderson to operate more regularly in their favoured midfield roles, most likely alongside Thiago.
It's a trio that Klopp was able to select just once last season as injuries ravaged both the defence and midfield at Anfield.
With Henderson fit enough for Euro 2020 duty at England and Gomez, Van Dijk and Matip all continuing their own respective comebacks at the AXA Training Centre, an almost new-look midfield could be set to take flight.
And they will hopefully get the chance to properly soar in front of a full crowd too.
The short-term Anfield future appears bright.
