Football and the Coronavirus

HangTime said:
Eh? Just look at the history, I literally cannot find a single instance of the premier league playing on the 28th when it was a working day in the past 15 years, I CBA looking back further
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Fair enough re the non working day point but it doesn't change the underlying point. It's not as if we can only play this round of games on a bank holiday because we don't - it's being played over 3 days and I'd guess that it has been the case in all of the last 10+ years too. As you pointed out, it doesn't even fall on a bank holiday in every season either! And it's not that we're doing it to allow Amazon more slots to broadcast matches because this has been going on long before this round of fixtures was entirely broadcast.

In pretty much every season (if not every season) in my memory we've had scenario's over the Xmas period where sides have had to play within 48 hours because of this fascination with cramming in 3 rounds of fixtures between the 26th and 1st. It's mental and given that we have and do play PL football on almost every day of the week now, it's completely unnecessary too.

Very little has to be changed. Spread the boxing day round from the 26th to 28th. This round can run from the 29th to 31st and then the New Years round runs from the 1st to 3rd. You can have a PL match being played every day from boxing day until the 3rd of Jan, no team will have to play twice in 48 hours and you're still leaving Amazon (and Sky & BT) plenty of slots to broadcast their games in.
 
In principal I don't disagree with the idea to change this round but the fact of the matter is the premier league loves hoovering up all the money from the video broadcasters - they can't have it both ways, rakes in the $$$$$$$$$$$$$ but then throw a hissey fit about playing matches on non-working days. You pays [takes] your moneys, you takes your choice.

It's really quite simple for clubs - if you don't want to cram in a bunch of games in the bumper Xmas period where there is 2x weekend plus 2x bank holidays then take the consequent cut in revenue, otherwise STFU.
 
HangTime said:
In principal I don't disagree with the idea to change this round but the fact of the matter is the premier league loves hoovering up all the money from the video broadcasters - they can't have it both ways, rakes in the $$$$$$$$$$$$$ but then throw a hissey fit about playing matches on non-working days. You pays [takes] your moneys, you takes your choice.

It's really quite simple for clubs - if you don't want to cram in a bunch of games in the bumper Xmas period where there is 2x weekend plus 2x bank holidays then take the consequent cut in revenue, otherwise STFU.
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I fail to see how any change would be to the determent of broadcasters though. Even with the current schedule you can only watch 6 of the 10 fixtures. Having the 10 games spread across Wednesday to Friday with kick off times at 6pm and 8pm offers 6 kick-off times too. In 2019 Amazon's Xmas round of fixtures was broadcast across just 5 kick-off times also. Is anybody more likely to watch a 3pm kick-off on a weekend or bank holiday more than they would a 6pm kick off on a Thursday?

As above, it's not just mad to expect sides to play twice in 48 hours but unnecessary too. I could maybe understand 20 years ago when playing football on Thursdays and Fridays wasn't the norm but over the last few years in particular that's changed. We're playing on these days anyway so why not have 3 games on a Thursday/Friday instead of 1?
 
Our game against Wolves on Tuesday is off.

Im not too disappointed as it’s less than 48 hours after today’s game. Gives us a week to prepare for the city game.

We do need to start having this out in the open more as to Covid cases and injuries and whatever.
 
One issue is there is another round of matches at the weekend, so if you play on a Thursday/Friday evening you are just shifting the problem back a few days. Although I do think they could play more games on the 3rd Jan considering that is a Bank Holiday.
Like you have alluded to fundamentally if you want to play 3 rounds of matches between Boxing day and NYD [BH] inclusive then there is a problem. It must be a money thing, they must be able to sell the rights to those games for more than having just two rounds of matches and trying to fit the games in at some other time.
 
HangTime said:
One issue is there is another round of matches at the weekend, so if you play on a Thursday/Friday evening you are just shifting the problem back a few days. Although I do think they could play more games on the 3rd Jan considering that is a Bank Holiday.
Like you have alluded to fundamentally if you want to play 3 rounds of matches between Boxing day and NYD [BH] inclusive then there is a problem. It must be a money thing, they must be able to sell the rights to those games for more than having just two rounds of matches and trying to fit the games in at some other time.
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You could also play a couple of games on the Tuesday too as for all but 4 sides it's an empty midweek. As I said, I could understand the desire to keep matches on set dates/days 20 years ago when the League was under pressure not to hold fixtures at inconvenient times for match going fans but that ship sailed years ago. There's football played on every day of the week now so why not play 2 or 3 games on a Monday night instead of just 1? It will make scheduling fixtures so much easier and it creates more tv slots for broadcasters and who knows, maybe we'll eventually be able to watch all 380 PL games legally in the UK.
 
I thought perhaps last season project restart with all games being shown on TV might have opened the floodgates for that becoming the norm but I've not heard much more about it since. Thursdays in particular are very underutilised, outside of holiday periods or when catching up on postponed games they are very rarely used for league matches. I don't really see any reason why Thursdays are any worse a day to play matches than other weekdays, except arguably Friday (makes it easier for away fans if the majority won't have to work the next day).
 
adam cool dude said:
I hope the United game is still on. Haven't watched any football in two weeks which must be the first time ever over Christmas that I can remember.
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Got a bad feeling about tonights game. For some reason we like to make any side in the bottom 3 look like peak Barcelona and quite often we throw them 3 points. We haven't played in weeks but I doubt we have been training that much either.
 
Feels like absolutely ages since we last played. Hopefully they’ve managed to get some training time in, the last game wasn’t great.
 
The_One said:
Artetas tested positive yet again

bad timing with games we got coming up
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Damn, hopefully got infected after Boxing Day and hasn’t infected others in the squad.

We’ve been pretty lucky with Covid so far this winter, would be a horrible time for it to start on us.
 
Andybtsn said:
Whos arteta hanging around with? Not many have have had it twice
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He had it earlyish in 2020 I think so its been 20+ months since he first caught it.

I'm sure plenty of people have had it twice now. When you consider how many people have it currently and how many people there are in the country it makes sense that we are seeing people getting their second dose.
 
Andybtsn said:
Whos arteta hanging around with? Not many have have had it twice
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Friend at work has had it twice, this is with all boosters etc, follows rules well. One occasion it was brought hom by his partner as a colleague she worked with went into work with full blown symptoms and spread it around office.

1st time he had no idea how it got to him. I guess with it mutating it's possible every one will get it least once if not more due to the strains changing
 
Pep and Dyche have tested positive and will miss this weekends fixtures, could this mean Man City and Burnley are going to have a few players now test positive as well
 
Mark1989 said:
Friend at work has had it twice, this is with all boosters etc, follows rules well. One occasion it was brought hom by his partner as a colleague she worked with went into work with full blown symptoms and spread it around office.

1st time he had no idea how it got to him. I guess with it mutating it's possible every one will get it least once if not more due to the strains changing
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Klopp got it off his mail man i heard delivering him is new PS5 and fifa 22 bundle
 
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