Coronavirus & The Premier League

[Dr. Gonzo]

7 hours ago, Stan said:

Why? 

I think it's quite reasonable. 

Same applies for FA Cup replays (when they're played). New signings who weren't registered for the original tie aren't allowed to play. Same should apply here. 

Should they be allowed to recall players they’ve sold to play in matches?

To me it just seems like a club scared shitless of facing Newcastle. I don’t like Newcastle with their cunty new owners, but it’s really just cowardice.

I say this as a fan of a club that’s probably not going to sign anyone this January and we’ll also be without 2 legitimate superstars regardless of any postponed fixtures - clubs should be able to play anyone that’s registered at the club and eligible to play.

Sure these players might not have been able to play the original match, but it’s not like clubs chose to give their players a disease that could have long term impacts that could affect players for the entirety of their contracts (because we know the clubs only care about them as assets not players).

[Honey Honey]

With regards to fairness for Southampton, essentially they're desperate to have the advantage of playing their 2nd fixture of the season with Newcastle prior to any new signings. A luxury not afforded to the rest of the bottom half. The fixtures are inherently unfair in that there are 21 games before the window opens. 

Only Everton have a good case to call for ineligible signings because they haven't played Newcastle once.

Man Utd have played us twice. Unfair advantage. I don't know why they designed the fixtures so that you can play someone twice before another team plays you once.

The window also needs to be moved to open on 19 games not 21.

A fair rule would be ineligible transfers if you haven't played that team this season yet.

[LFCMike]

27 minutes ago, shut up said:

It's probably because your training ground miraculously reopened the day after the arsenal game

Training was stopped on Tuesday because of the outbreak. They've now identified all of the suspected cases and Public Health have allowed the training ground to reopen ahead of a game that the FA have said has to go ahead. Not sure what's difficult to understand about that. 

[Storts]

3 hours ago, LFCMike said:

Training was stopped on Tuesday because of the outbreak. They've now identified all of the suspected cases and Public Health have allowed the training ground to reopen ahead of a game that the FA have said has to go ahead. Not sure what's difficult to understand about that. 

Shhhh don’t let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy 

[Rick]

Southampton have been the most pathetic club all the way through this new outbreak. They way they have acted is as if they don’t believed there to be a pandemic happening. 
 

New players can’t play rearranged games? Fucking shut up. I guess you have to recall sold players for that one game as well then. It’s shit that Newcastle might have an advantage but it’s a pandemic and everything is unfair. Just fucking get on with it. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

I’m not even sure letting Howe spend lots of money is an advantage

[Stan]

45 minutes ago, Rick said:

Southampton have been the most pathetic club all the way through this new outbreak. They way they have acted is as if they don’t believed there to be a pandemic happening. 
 

New players can’t play rearranged games? Fucking shut up. I guess you have to recall sold players for that one game as well then. It’s shit that Newcastle might have an advantage but it’s a pandemic and everything is unfair. Just fucking get on with it. 

How have they acted as if a pandemic isn't happening? 

[Rick]

4 minutes ago, Stan said:

How have they acted as if a pandemic isn't happening? 

The way they have openly whinged about the games being cancelled. Then they demanded a full list of who had Covid from the Newcastle camp and now the manager coming out and saying new signings shouldn’t  be allowed to play.

 

There are plenty of managers (including my own) that have voiced their concerns about the Christmas Schedule during covid, but Southampton seem to think that no game should have been called off, which is stupid as fuck. 

[Bluewolf]

I was reading this article last night... Not sure about the executives being able to push back given all the postponed games taking place currently due to outbreaks.. 

Premier League footballers who refuse to get Covid vaccinations will effectively be barred from playing some matches under a rule change being pushed by the Culture Department.

 

Under the current rules, unjabbed elite sportsmen who return to the UK from abroad can break the obligatory 10 days of self-isolation to attend training or compete at events.

But The Telegraph can reveal that Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, wants to end that exemption, which allows sports stars to be treated differently to members of the public.

It would mean that Premier League clubs that play in European competitions would be unable to select unvaccinated players in the days after their return to the UK.

Premier League executives have been braced for possible rule changes and are expected to push back, arguing that the current exemptions pose little threat to health given the stringent testing regimes in place.

Premier League stars who refuse Covid vaccine could be barred from playing matches (msn.com)

 

[Honey Honey]

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I’m not even sure letting Howe spend lots of money is an advantage

Now we know Lascelles and Clark have covid and ASM is actually fit it seems postponing the game was to Southampton's advantage

[LFCMike]

9 minutes ago, shut up said:

Public health had nothing to do with it. Liverpool shut down their training ground of their own accord. It wasn't closed down by the government 

When it was closed...

The decision was made after consultation with the relevant Public Health authority.

When it reopened...

After consultation with the relevant Public Health authority, operations have now resumed within the first-team set-up at the training ground.

[LFCMike]

Liverpool making heads fall off again and again

[Guest]

https://footballmedicine.net/how-fatigue-affects-your-players-management/

 

@Devil-Dick Willie find this quite interesting. This article here suggests you are right. Footballers would probably need around 72 hours before another game. Less than that does significantly increase risk of injury 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, Gunnersauraus said:

https://footballmedicine.net/how-fatigue-affects-your-players-management/

 

@Devil-Dick Willie find this quite interesting. This article here suggests you are right. Footballers would probably need around 72 hours before another game. Less than that does significantly increase risk of injury 

Almost like the football managers and players that are saying 2 matches in 48 hours is dangerous might know more about health and fitness than some angry lads on a forum bitching about how English football is being killed by these foreign managers.

And really English football’s been dead for 30 years and we’ve just been parading around with it’s money stuffed corpse because doing that gets us more money.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Almost like the football managers and players that are saying 2 matches in 48 hours is dangerous might know more about health and fitness than some angry lads on a forum bitching about how English football is being killed by these foreign managers.

And really English football’s been dead for 30 years and we’ve just been parading around with it’s money stuffed corpse because doing that gets us more money.

I do think managers moan mind and make excuses. However it is reasonable to complain about having to play two games in 48 hours. Also I'm pretty certain 72 hours is minimum time as well so players may need more sometimes as the season goes on. Plus you have to take into account training. I do find it strange that people who have never played professional football are saying players shouldnt be getting tired. Also the amount of injuries players are getting this season shows they are being overworked. Its amazing to me that people say they play pub football 3 times a week so premier league players should be able to. Another thing is that managers sometimes say players are tired to defend them or themselves. Saying that you played a game earlier in the week and it may affect your performance is ok when you are under so much pressure to win I think. 

[LFCMike]

 

 

[RandoEFC+]

Not having a dig at Leicester or getting into conspiracy theories or cry-arsing about any individual team but there's a question here that has to be answered eventually.

On one hand, the mass unavailability caused by Covid and particularly Omicron should see clubs get some sort of special dispensation if they're missing a huge chunk of the squad out of what boils down to bad luck. I'm not having this shite about Maddison and Barnes or whoever it was going to the darts the other day. You can't expect them to never socialise or do anything outside of their jobs. Even being a footballer is only a job.

But the question has to be asked here. Injuries and players on international duty have always been a part of football. I don't know the exact numbers with any of the instances we've seen over the past few weeks, but the way the rules are now, you could be missing a couple of your squad players with Covid-19 and then another 6-7 players to normal injuries and get a football match called off "because of Covid".

A line has to be drawn with this somewhere. People might argue that once the majority of the players have caught Covid then that's it, they won't catch it again, but that was the case before Omicron came to the fore and reset things again. We don't know for sure whether another weird mutation will come back around and do exactly what Omicron has done mid-season this time around, or even whether it's guaranteed that once most Premier League players have had Omicron once, they can pretty much forget about it for next year.

I don't have the answers, but surely these rules need tightening up somehow, and the threshold for which you can get a game called off 'because of Covid' has to be set in stone instead of letting clubs cry foul whenever they've got what would previously have been deemed a bad injury crisis that they have to deal with and perhaps being a bit cheeky with their lateral flow test results. E.G. you've got to have 5 or more positive PCR tests in your squad for your appeal to be successful, and if you have 4 Covid cases and 5 injuries then you're just going to have to deal with it.

I just don't think having players at the African Cup of Nations is a good excuse to have matches called off if that's what pushes you over the limit of having enough senior players available, though I do sympathise with teams that are down to the bare bones for a mixture of reasons including Covid.

[Dave]

With how easy this new rule is to be abused by clubs it needs to be altered.

 

On 08/01/2022 at 08:52, LFCMike said:

Training was stopped on Tuesday because of the outbreak. They've now identified all of the suspected cases and Public Health have allowed the training ground to reopen ahead of a game that the FA have said has to go ahead. Not sure what's difficult to understand about that. 

If the FA said the match has to go ahead then I apologise.

 

5 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Almost like the football managers and players that are saying 2 matches in 48 hours is dangerous might know more about health and fitness than some angry lads on a forum bitching about how English football is being killed by these foreign managers.

To be fair, all of us 'angry lads' were aware of this when we saw Manchester United field a seperate starting eleven when they had 3 games in 5/6 days last season.

[Smiley Culture]

What is it with English football that’s seen such an increase in injuries of late? I’m not talking covid here, though I appreciate the after effects can render players unavailable once they’re clear of it, but actual injuries. 

The Premier League plays the same amount of games as Ligue 1, Serie A and La Liga. Bundesliga play two less domestically. France, Spain and Italy have one domestic cup and we have two, though Premier League clubs rarely play a “first team” in either. We’ve had seven teams (which is a frankly bonkers number anyway) playing in Europe this year, with varying degrees of success. Spain also has seven, as has Italy and Germany but France has six. 

Is English football that much more physically demanding than the rest of Europe? Do we have a significant amount more players playing internationally across the globe than the rest and that’s a factor? 

I am going to look at Leicester as they’ve had their game called off after they requested it to be. They’ve got fifty full-time professional players on their books with squad numbers for this season (seventy if you include the under-18’s though that’s harsh). Are thirty-six players really unavailable through covid, injury or African Nations duty? I don’t know obviously but with their facilities, the staff they have, the finances they get for being a Premier League team that pay for the above, I’m a bit cynical. It’s not a dig at Leicester, I thought the same of Liverpool in midweek in a cup semi-final, who within a few days could suddenly make a full squad to play a third division team in the third round of the FA Cup.

On the flip side, I can see why some injuries are occurring. Football’s need for more and more money has brought this on somewhat and it’s not going to change. I’m probably going to miss some here but we’ve had the introduction of the UEFA Conference League (why?!), the attempted Super League nonsense, the introduction of the Nations League, the change from the UEFA Cup being a knockout competition to going to group stages, the Euros being expanded to include more nations, and we’ve got the farcical blood money World Cup in Qatar and the Champions League group stages going from six games to ten games to come in 2024. UEFA and FIFA’s need for greed, sorry football, is insatiable and as long as the fat cats at those organisations are earning money and players are falling into line and playing football, why would it change? Football fans aren’t going to demand for less football, it’s not in our nature. The only reason the Super League was met with such disgust is because it broke all moral and sporting codes. It’s the list of events above that then winds me up when managers moan about the FA Cup or the League Cup inconveniently dragging them away from an hour long Coronation Street episode that winds me up. They’re going for the easy target. The one that yields them the least finances and the least risk to their job. The hypocrisy when they’re then expending all their energy on winning a European title or finishing in the top four is the hypocrisy that winds me up. They won’t moan about ten games as opposed to six in the Champions League. Just think of the lovely bonuses. It’s those games on a Tuesday night in October or in tue Third Round of the FA Cup against third tier opposition, where they’d never name a full strength side even if they had one available to them, that’s the problem.

It won’t end either. This Leicester v Everton game is the 19th game postponed in the Premier League this season, if they’re not already, any more games postponed and you’re surely going to have to extend the season? Hypothetical I know but with that and the early start to next season and then the World Cup mid-season, the likely shorter break between the 22/23 season and the 23/24 season and then the Euros and you’re looking at 2025 before players might get something resembling an off-season, but by then, the Champions League is expanded and we’ve had talk of the Nations League expanding to include South America. Where does it end?

Frankly, there is too much of a good thing and there simply is too much football. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of good football, whether that’s aesthetically or entertaining games but we are getting to that point where football just never stops and that’s going to have an effect somewhere. Maybe we’re seeing signs of it, maybe we’re also seeing some signs of abuse of power, I don’t know. 

It’s a mess but football’s, largely, been one longer than most of us have been alive. 

[Lucas]

It feels odd to me that Leicester can play an FA Cup tie on Saturday but can't play a league game in Tuesday. I get there are different rules for the competitions but morally it's not right really.

This is who played Saturday.

In addition, Schmeichel on the bench. A team good enough to beat another Premier League side 4-1.

Don't get me wrong, they are stretched obviously, a couple players filling in where they wouldn't usually play, and yes, they may have to field a young bench of kids.

However, that's no different to what we've been doing for large chunks of this season and we've cracked on.

Why this gripes with me is because we play West Ham again next Sunday. We will be missing a host of players as well as Llorente suspended. We actually won't have a recognised striker unless someone recovers this week so we will utilise our U21's like we did in the FA Cuo game yesterday. We will have square pegs in round holes and we will have a bench of kids. But we will likely fulfill the fixture. 

Maybe its more fool us, Bielsa doesn't ever seem to complain about VAR, decisions, Covid, injuries...he just gets on with it. Maybe if we made more noise, it would help our cause.

But it is frustrating seeing these kind of things happen around you and feels like a piss take. I know club 'x' will want to postpone because club 'y' did so its only fair, but it really feels off.

The irony is, right now, I'd look at that Leicester team and arguably fancy them to beat Everton without being harsh to them. 

[Lucas]

P.S I'm actually even more annoyed because I brought Demari Gray in for a double gameweek in FPL 

[Stan]

1 hour ago, Lucas said:

It feels odd to me that Leicester can play an FA Cup tie on Saturday but can't play a league game in Tuesday. I get there are different rules for the competitions but morally it's not right really.

This is who played Saturday.

In addition, Schmeichel on the bench. A team good enough to beat another Premier League side 4-1.

Don't get me wrong, they are stretched obviously, a couple players filling in where they wouldn't usually play, and yes, they may have to field a young bench of kids.

However, that's no different to what we've been doing for large chunks of this season and we've cracked on.

Why this gripes with me is because we play West Ham again next Sunday. We will be missing a host of players as well as Llorente suspended. We actually won't have a recognised striker unless someone recovers this week so we will utilise our U21's like we did in the FA Cuo game yesterday. We will have square pegs in round holes and we will have a bench of kids. But we will likely fulfill the fixture. 

Maybe its more fool us, Bielsa doesn't ever seem to complain about VAR, decisions, Covid, injuries...he just gets on with it. Maybe if we made more noise, it would help our cause.

But it is frustrating seeing these kind of things happen around you and feels like a piss take. I know club 'x' will want to postpone because club 'y' did so its only fair, but it really feels off.

The irony is, right now, I'd look at that Leicester team and arguably fancy them to beat Everton without being harsh to them. 

The rules are 13 senior outfield players. 

We only have 8 senior outfield players. 

The rules are different for FA Cup and PL. 

We have absences due to COVID, injuries and AFCON. Any other club not meeting that PL criteria would be able to have the game postponed. I don't get what's so difficult to understand why the game has been postponed. It was stupid to rearrange it in January anyway. 

As for the darts thing that I've seen people mention, totally irrelevant. Barnes HAD covid and recovered. They're allowed to live their lives. 

2 minutes ago, shut up said:

That Leicester defence is bad. Their whole back four is gone lol i think it looks like the right decision tbh. 

Precisely. Pereira, Fofana/Soyuncu/Evans, Castagne, Justin all unavailable. 

Also Watford had a very depleted squad too. Hence why it may look easier to beat them. 

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, shut up said:

Are they long term injuries?

Justin just returning from a bad ACL last Feb. 

Fofana still out from a broken leg against Villarreal. 

Pereira fractured shin against Liverpool last month. 

Evans out til April. 

Unsure on Castagne. Soyuncu due to return soon. 

 

Rest of the squad - Vardy out til March. Unsure on Dewsbury-Hall or Thomas. 

Ndidi, Amartey, Iheanacho and Mendy all at AFCON. 

[Honey Honey]

Us and Arsenal pulled out of the FA Cup due to covid. Others have the option to do so if they please. If they don't opt to they can't really complain about fixture congestion 

[Dave]

If Leicester go far in Europe I don't see how any further cancellations benefit them at all.

If anyone will have to do the three games in 5/6 days it most likely will be them.