Brentford P-P Man Utd - Tuesday 14th December, 2021

[Stan]

Kick-off 19.30

Live on BT Sport

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Brentford - WDLWD
Man Utd - WDWWD

[Stan]

Looks likely this game might be called off due to COVID outbreak in Man Utd's squad. 

[Danny]

I appreciate player safety is paramount but how many positive cases is too many positive cases? What’s the consistent response? We’ve just played without Ivan Toney due to Covid who also would have been around the rest of the squad.

[Stan]

2 minutes ago, Danny said:

I appreciate player safety is paramount but how many positive cases is too many positive cases? What’s the consistent response? We’ve just played without Ivan Toney due to Covid who also would have been around the rest of the squad.

I think it's to do with how many cases there are and what squad could be played out of the 25-man squad. Not sure if it's just European rules but if you can field a 13-man squad incl. 1 goalkeeper then the game should go ahead.

If you've only had Toney out, then I'd say that's not enough to have a game postponed.

[Danny]

12 minutes ago, Stan said:

I think it's to do with how many cases there are and what squad could be played out of the 25-man squad. Not sure if it's just European rules but if you can field a 13-man squad incl. 1 goalkeeper then the game should go ahead.

If you've only had Toney out, then I'd say that's not enough to have a game postponed.

Pretty sure United can field a normal sized squad.

I don’t understand what the difference is between one positive case closing down the training ground and 4 or 5. Surely if safety is your concern you’d shut it as soon as there is one case as the tests on the other players are not always exactly accurate straight away.

There just doesn’t seem to be clear and concise ruling on the matter.

[Stan]

10 minutes ago, Danny said:

Pretty sure United can field a normal sized squad.

I don’t understand what the difference is between one positive case closing down the training ground and 4 or 5. Surely if safety is your concern you’d shut it as soon as there is one case as the tests on the other players are not always exactly accurate straight away.

There just doesn’t seem to be clear and concise ruling on the matter.

Depends on if LFTs are done and then PCRs. Man Utd recently had LFTs after Norwich game, then their PCRs all came back positive this morning.

[The Artful Dodger]

The season really should be paused, this is silly.

[Danny]

18 minutes ago, Stan said:

Depends on if LFTs are done and then PCRs. Man Utd recently had LFTs after Norwich game, then their PCRs all came back positive this morning.

Fair dos, just frustrating. Will have to wait for more info 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, The Artful Dodger said:

The season really should be paused, this is silly.

I agree, either it's safe enough to keep playing or these outbreaks are serious enough for the league to necessitate a pause.

However, I think the league is keen to get the season done with as few delays as possible because of the upcoming world cup.

[Rick]

There’s no way they are pausing the season unless the government bring in lockdowns, which I don’t think will happen. 
 

Spurs had about 5 players out? They should have been made to fulfil their game against Brighton. They have a big enough squad to do it, as do Utd. If they can field an 11 with 4 subs then that should be the end of it as far as I am concerned. Teams like Leicester & us were ravaged by injury’s last season but we both had to get on with it. 

[Lucas]

It would be nice to know publically who the positive tested players were so you could actually see if they were genuine first teamers or if teams were pulling a fast one.

[Rick]

28 minutes ago, Lucas said:

It would be nice to know publically who the positive tested players were so you could actually see if they were genuine first teamers or if teams were pulling a fast one.

I understand them not releasing the names to the public, but didn’t the fella from Rennes come out and say that Spurs wouldn’t confirm to them or UEFA which players were positive when they had a video meeting. That’s not on at all, for all we know they could be lumping players from the u16’s in that number.

[LFCMike]

49 minutes ago, Rick said:

There’s no way they are pausing the season unless the government bring in lockdowns, which I don’t think will happen. 
 

Spurs had about 5 players out? They should have been made to fulfil their game against Brighton. They have a big enough squad to do it, as do Utd. If they can field an 11 with 4 subs then that should be the end of it as far as I am concerned. Teams like Leicester & us were ravaged by injury’s last season but we both had to get on with it. 

How can teams be expected to play if they've shut their training ground because of it? There's also the fact that it will spread through a squad over a number of days if you're expecting them to keep training together. If they play a match at the stage where there's only a few players confirmed as having it then they risk passing it on to their opponents as well surely?

[Rick]

5 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

How can teams be expected to play if they've shut their training ground because of it? There's also the fact that it will spread through a squad over a number of days if you're expecting them to keep training together. If they play a match at the stage where there's only a few players confirmed as having it then they risk passing it on to their opponents as well surely?

Are players not taking tests before training? If not they should be. Any player testing positive shouldn’t even be making it to the training ground, nevermind training with others. These clubs have so much money that testing should be absolute paramount during a pandemic. 
 

City took the absolute piss last season and got their game postponed when they had enough players to play the game. The league set a precedent and now we are seeing more clubs trying their luck. 

[LFCMike]

4 minutes ago, Rick said:

Are players not taking tests before training? If not they should be. Any player testing positive shouldn’t even be making it to the training ground, nevermind training with others. These clubs have so much money that testing should be absolute paramount during a pandemic. 
 

City took the absolute piss last season and got their game postponed when they had enough players to play the game. The league set a precedent and now we are seeing more clubs trying their luck. 

I'd assume so but I don't think that will stop it spreading through a squad so quickly

[Dave]

28 minutes ago, Rick said:

I understand them not releasing the names to the public, but didn’t the fella from Rennes come out and say that Spurs wouldn’t confirm to them or UEFA which players were positive when they had a video meeting. That’s not on at all, for all we know they could be lumping players from the u16’s in that number.

I assumed if the people involved don't want there medical status confirmed to an external party then the clubs hands are tied?

As a competition organiser / governing body you'd anticipate UEFA would have some form of disclosure procedure for such incidents at the start of the season but then again we can't trust them to organise a cup draw efficiently.

[Rick]

3 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

I'd assume so but I don't think that will stop it spreading through a squad so quickly

I’m probably being very cynical about this whole thing but I think the precedent was set last season with City laughably being allowed to postpone a game despite having a giant squad of players who weren’t infected. Seems convenient that teams want to postpone games around the Christmas period. 

[LFCMike]

3 minutes ago, Rick said:

I’m probably being very cynical about this whole thing but I think the precedent was set last season with City laughably being allowed to postpone a game despite having a giant squad of players who weren’t infected. Seems convenient that teams want to postpone games around the Christmas period. 

Yeah I think you are! It's that time of year and there's a new variant that's more transmissible

[Dave]

It doesn't really make sense for Man United to want a postponement given the run of fixtures they're on at minute. Five wins in Ralph's first five doesn't seem too unrealistic on paper. Two clean sheets, two wins, players finding a good rhythm. Even with the quick turnaround of fixtures they'd still fancy there chances.

[Cicero]

@Rick has brought up a genuine point here whether some may agree with it or not. Giving certain clubs "weeks off" due to an up rise in cases within the club will only benefit said club in the long run. Man City is the shining example last season whilst other clubs were scourged with injuries by having to continue to play on during this winter schedule. 

If we had Everton and Wolves called off, whilst at the same time have our players in the recovery room to further prevent injury and at the same time have Kante, Kovacic, Chilwell and Chalobah back from their preexisting injuries, this would give us an incredible boost.

[RandoEFC+]

2 hours ago, Rick said:

Are players not taking tests before training? If not they should be. Any player testing positive shouldn’t even be making it to the training ground, nevermind training with others. These clubs have so much money that testing should be absolute paramount during a pandemic. 
 

City took the absolute piss last season and got their game postponed when they had enough players to play the game. The league set a precedent and now we are seeing more clubs trying their luck. 

I don't know if every team have the same protocols but with Man Utd and this outbreak my understanding was they take lateral flow tests when they arrive at training and a few of them tested positive so turned around and went home while the rest of the squad trained with less contact as a precaution.

I don't know what the answer is here. I honestly don't think there is one which you can trust to maximise the integrity of the competition without sacrificing player and staff welfare at those clubs. They probably need to put a number on it. If you have 10 or more of your 25 man squad unavailable due to injury and/or Covid then you can have the fixture rearranged. Of course this isn't perfect either because then how do you define 'injured' and how do you stop teams from pretending they've got a 10th player unavailable when they probably could play.

There's no solution really that works but at least if you put some measurable number on it you can establish some sort of consistency in the decision making. I don't think players missing through Covid should be deemed the same as injuries because of the high transmissibility posing the risk of wiping out half your team at once whereas if you get 4-5 players injured at once all independent of each other then that's just bad luck and has always been accepted as a part of football. I don't think it's relevant to be comparing injury crises like that to Covid outbreaks. Maybe that invalidates my suggestion about having 10 injuries/infections. Who knows.

Delaying the season seems pointless though. Disrupt the schedule for the same thing to happen in 2-3 weeks time when we restart? Not a solution for me really.

[Redcanuck]

Game has been postponed.

[Redcanuck]

I can't find any information on how nany players tested positive and who they are.

[LFCMike]