Coronavirus & The Premier League

[The Artful Dodger]

On 16/12/2021 at 23:25, Smiley Culture said:

If they go back to behind closed doors football and league suspensions my interest in football will plateau to an all time low. 

If they have a pause they should only restart with fans. It’s a totally different sport without fans in the stadium. 

Get rid of the Qatar World Cup. Problem sorted.

[Lucas]

[RandoEFC+]

Some talk that a few Christmas gathering involving players is contributing to some of the outbreaks. Leeds are certainly unfortunate. I'd make the case that Everton are as well. If we'd had Digne, Mina, Delph, Davies, Gray, Townsend, Richarlison, Rondon and Calvert-Lewin missing to Covid instead of injury midweek, surely that game would have been pulled as well.

It's really starting to feel like some overriding decision has to be made here instead of just deciding things on a case by case basis. This latest wave is making things really chaotic.

[Reluctant Striker]

Yes, for me, it urgently needs to get to a stage either it is treated like any other illness or injury. Or there is some order brought to the chaos. Even if it does mean behind closed doors. The vaccine passport thing seems a bit neither here nor there. And obviously football being global has knock on effects of different nations being in different situations, making their own rules up. etc. But this latest batch is all within England..

[The Artful Dodger]

 It’s bonkers this. Either every game goes ahead or none.

[Dave]

Seems to be significantly less fixtures getting cancelled elsewhere too.... 

[Stan]

 

[The Artful Dodger]

13 hours ago, The Palace Fan said:

Seems to be significantly less fixtures getting cancelled elsewhere too.... 

Precedent was set last year when Manchester City disgracefully got the Everton game called off. Spurs and Man Utd have seen that and run with it. No coincidence they’ve got new managers.

[Waylander]

Surely if football is stopped now the rest week in February will disappear.

[Stan]

32 minutes ago, Waylander said:

Surely if football is stopped now the rest week in February will disappear.

It makes sense to fill it in then.

I think I heard the other day that PL/FA (?) have only left 2 clear game-weeks further in the season but they're usually reserved for re-arranged games due to FA Cup weekends taking precedence. So they're already struggling to find times to use up for any games that are postponed now and need to be re-arranged.

Doesn't help that Nations League starts only a few days after the CL final in the summer. And then an earlier start for next season due to the World Cup.

I genuinely wouldn't be averse to binning off the World Cup next season but it's not gonna happen in a month of Sundays.

[Rick]

Chelsea have had a request to postpone today’s game rejected. Sounds like they are trying it on a bit because they have injuries in the squad. Tuchel even said they had no new positive cases, so they can fuck of.

[Stan]

13 minutes ago, Rick said:

Chelsea have had a request to postpone today’s game rejected. Sounds like they are trying it on a bit because they have injuries in the squad. Tuchel even said they had no new positive cases, so they can fuck of.

Possibly to do with some new cases in Wolves' squad? Might just be worried they may get more through playing this game.

[The Artful Dodger]

14 minutes ago, Rick said:

Chelsea have had a request to postpone today’s game rejected. Sounds like they are trying it on a bit because they have injuries in the squad. Tuchel even said they had no new positive cases, so they can fuck of.

All the clubs are. Manchester City cheated last year and got away with it; this chaos is the result. Clubs know they can get a bit of rest. 
 

 

[Rick]

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

Possibly to do with some new cases in Wolves' squad? Might just be worried they may get more through playing this game.

Nah, I’m not having that. If Wolves are good to play the game then that’s no excuse for Chelsea to use. They have injuries to key players and want a rest week, just like City last season. Leeds have been ravaged by injuries, had to put a 15 year old on the bench yesterday and you don’t see them trying this shite. 

[Stan]

1 minute ago, Rick said:

Nah, I’m not having that. If Wolves are good to play the game then that’s no excuse for Chelsea to use. They have injuries to key players and want a rest week, just like City last season. Leeds have been ravaged by injuries, had to put a 15 year old on the bench yesterday and you don’t see them trying this shite. 

I agree, was just thinking. If there's no new cases game shouldn't be off just because they may be suffering elsewhere. 

 

It does beg the question what the criteria is though. We had quite a few cases in our camp last week, ask for the game to be called off but that was denied. Then we got a few more cases and eventually common sense prevailed for the game to be called off. 

[Rick]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

I agree, was just thinking. If there's no new cases game shouldn't be off just because they may be suffering elsewhere. 

 

It does beg the question what the criteria is though. We had quite a few cases in our camp last week, ask for the game to be called off but that was denied. Then we got a few more cases and eventually common sense prevailed for the game to be called off. 

I would like to know this as well. With Leeds having to bring a kid in, is that not expected of these teams to do as well if they run out of first team players? The Premier League are a joke, they just won’t be transparent on anything. 

[RandoEFC+]

What's the criteria here? What reason was given for Chelsea's appeal being rejected? There must be some criteria here such as a number of Covid cases required for special dispensation or a certain percentage of senior players being unavailable. And it needs to be made public to be honest if they don't want the cynical takes on clubs taking advantage because the timing suits them for a few days off to become the prevailing viewpoint.

[Waylander]

I heard today you play if you have 14 outfield players available, I wonder if that was applied to Utd a week ago.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

41 minutes ago, Waylander said:

I heard today you play if you have 14 outfield players available, I wonder if that was applied to Utd a week ago.

That's the case in the EFL. Not sure if that's in the prem as well though.

[Redcanuck]

2 hours ago, Waylander said:

I heard today you play if you have 14 outfield players available, I wonder if that was applied to Utd a week ago.

I heard they only had 9 players available for Brentford and 7 for Brighton.  But that could have been starters or first team players and not the entire squad. Closing the training ground in an effort to control the spread would have had a role in the decision to postpone both games, since they had no place to prepare.

[Stan]

No break in play. 

 

Interesting to find out as to how the votes were broken down. Whether it was unanimous or which clubs would have voted either way... 

 

 

[LFCMike]

7 minutes ago, Stan said:

No break in play. 

 

Interesting to find out as to how the votes were broken down. Whether it was unanimous or which clubs would have voted either way... 

 

 

From what I've read there was no formal vote but some clubs were behind postponing a round of fixtures.

[Storts]

1 hour ago, LFCMike said:

From what I've read there was no formal vote but some clubs were behind postponing a round of fixtures.

Yeah sounds like Liverpool were leading on that one 

[LFCMike]

7 minutes ago, Storts said:

Yeah sounds like Liverpool were leading on that one 

I think it would have been sensible for everyone. I'm not sure how they can expect Covid hit squads to play two games in three days.

[The Artful Dodger]

With Spurs and Man City showing you can take the piss and basically play when you like there’s no wonder it didn’t pass. A pause would clearly be the most sensible thing to do.