Jurgen Klopp seems a shoo-in to win the Premier League Manager of the Year award.

After all, he has guided Liverpool to the top of the Premier League table and they have lost just once this season, a 3-0 thumping at the hands of Watford.

The German has never won the award, with Pep Guardiola pipping him to the title last year, in both senses of the word.

And this year should be no different.

Indeed, while Liverpool have become an irrepressible winning machine under his management, one has to feel that the gong, really, should go to Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder.

Having brought the club up from the Championship, he has performed miracles this season, with the Bramall Lane club currently seventh in the suspended Premier League.

If the season is able to finish, they could conceivably qualify for the Champions League; they are just five points behind Chelsea and still have to host Frank Lampard’s men at Bramall Lane.

They have lost only seven games all season – the same number as Manchester City and fewer than Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, and Leicester City – and have done it all on a shoestring budget.

Indeed, Wilder was appointed in 2016. Since the 2016-17 summer transfer window, he has spent a grand total of £73.78m, per Transfermarkt. £62.1m of that has come this season.

Klopp, by comparison, has lavished £401.65m on his squad in the same timeframe.

That Sheffield United are competing at the top end of the Premier League is remarkable, and points to the astonishing job that Wilder has done.

Call yourself a Liverpool expert? How much did each of these big-money January signings cost?

That he has built a squad packed with talent, grit, and determination on a fraction of the money spent by the clubs he is routinely showing up should be more than enough to earn him the coveted Manager of the Year prize.

If he steers them into the Champions League, it should be upgraded to Manager of the Decade.

For Klopp, though, he will have the small recompense of surely winning the Premier League title when play resumes.

That will surely be enough.

Meanwhile, Liverpool are prioritising the wrong area this summer!