OxfordVillan Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 What will be, will be. If we have to play the final 10 games then I’m obviously not against that. What I’m against is playing those final 10 games in a way that disadvantages us compared to games that have gone before. By that I mean playing games behind closed doors when the majority of our games left are home games, thereby losing any notion of “home” advantage that any visiting club has already benefited from in the reverse fixture. I’d expect AVFC, and others, to fight tooth and nail against any move to play these games behind closed doors. If the powers that be can **** Villa over then they will, I’ve got a nagging doubt in the back of my head that keeps telling me that they are going to try and get “results” to this season come hell or high water. If you watch back on the TV footage of Purslow leaving that Premier League meeting he doesn’t seem happy to me, he seems agitated and offers a belligerent answer about the Premier League powers, sarcastically saying something along the line of “we’ve got excellent premier league bosses”. We’ll have to wait and see, but I do have that feeling that any decision made will not be to our advantage. It just doesn’t work out like that for Villa, ever! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxfordVillan Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 8 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said: On the off chance the season does resume in May you think it’s likely to be behind closed doors ? As I’ve said in a post, Villa and other clubs should fight the idea of behind closed door games tooth and nail. All notion of home advantage is gone, other clubs have already benefited from home advantage in the reverse fixture and therefore its not a level playing field. We have 6 of our final 10 games at Villa Park. If we’re to complete the 2019/20 season then it HAS to be under the exact same circumstances as games that have gone before, ie with fans present at the games. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob182 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 1 hour ago, Silent_Bob said: Remember, they are football 'experts', not health experts. So far I have yet to see or hear a health expert saying we should re-start the football sesason in May. I hope nobody will play football just because the likes of Gary Neville think it's safe. I think at best they will play a couple of games so Liverpool can win it. And to be honest, I think they are far more concerned about having a winner than they are about relegations/promotions. What if Liverpool only pick up draws or losses in those games? You can't really carry on a season just until Liverpool pick up the required points. What we need is for 2 clubs to agree to forfeit their remaining games against Liverpool, giving them a 3-0 win in each game, with the agreement that only Liverpool's league position will count, and the positions of the teams in 2nd-20th will be void and we'll start again next season. Simple Villa and one other relegation candidate can agree to forfeit our remaining fixture against Liverpool, and we'll call it quits. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 1 hour ago, nepal_villan said: There are far more clubs with a vested interest in the league being cancelled than it resuming, thus I think PL members will not be too eager to complete the season. The bottom 7 clubs are afraid of relegation. Spurs and Arsenal are worried of missing out on the UCL and EL respectively. Everton don't want Liverpool being crowned champions. Etc. The vested interests are the subscription sports channels who own the sport. They have paid billions for a product and they would like it to be finished if possible so people will not cancel their monthly payments. If it is behind closed doors does not matter, at least for the premier league. Gate receipts are not the be all and end all for the top flight nowadays. Football league is a different story and I do worry about the smaller teams. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 (edited) 5 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said: The vested interests are the subscription sports channels who own the sport. They have paid billions for a product and they would like it to be finished if possible so people will not cancel their monthly payments. If it is behind closed doors does not matter, at least for the premier league. Gate receipts are not the be all and end all for the top flight nowadays. Football league is a different story and I do worry about the smaller teams. Exactly! Anything and everything else is inconsequential to the people who run the game. Edited March 18, 2020 by sne 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 23 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said: On the off chance the season does resume in May you think it’s likely to be behind closed doors ? I think that is most likely, what they would try to do. I don't think they should even consider a restart, in what is likely to be a time when we are nearer to the peak of that sombrero, than we are now. If they do try, I can't see them playing all of the games they would need to in order to complete the season's outstanding fixtures in any case. It would represent too great a risk in my opinion, but I'm not too sure that the decision maker's would not be prepared, to take that unnecessary risk.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 9 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said: Gate receipts are not the be all and end all for the top flight nowadays. Football league is a different story and I do worry about the smaller teams. Quite right, gate receipts and other match day income, is what keeps lots of smaller clubs afloat. It would be appropriate to compensate those clubs in the EFL from PL/EFL prize money from this season/next, to avoid more clubs going the way of Bury and to keep lower paid footballers in a job. I doubt that will happen though, as the "I'm all right Jack" response, would be likely from the cash rich clubs and league officials, seem to have limited concern for clubs that are not awash with money. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 1 hour ago, OxfordVillan said: What will be, will be. If we have to play the final 10 games then I’m obviously not against that. What I’m against is playing those final 10 games in a way that disadvantages us compared to games that have gone before. By that I mean playing games behind closed doors when the majority of our games left are home games, thereby losing any notion of “home” advantage that any visiting club has already benefited from in the reverse fixture. I’d expect AVFC, and others, to fight tooth and nail against any move to play these games behind closed doors. If the powers that be can **** Villa over then they will, I’ve got a nagging doubt in the back of my head that keeps telling me that they are going to try and get “results” to this season come hell or high water. If you watch back on the TV footage of Purslow leaving that Premier League meeting he doesn’t seem happy to me, he seems agitated and offers a belligerent answer about the Premier League powers, sarcastically saying something along the line of “we’ve got excellent premier league bosses”. We’ll have to wait and see, but I do have that feeling that any decision made will not be to our advantage. It just doesn’t work out like that for Villa, ever! What about having reduced capacities. No away fans and have something like a maximum of 30% of the ground for home fans spread across the ground? Far better than having behind closed doors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 Think it'll turn out like going from the plots in 28 days later to 28 weeks later if they try and restart the leagues with fans in the stadiums. It might look like it's working for a short while but then the whole thing would just start spreading again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeyAnty Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 53 minutes ago, John said: Quite right, gate receipts and other match day income, is what keeps lots of smaller clubs afloat. It would be appropriate to compensate those clubs in the EFL from PL/EFL prize money from this season/next, to avoid more clubs going the way of Bury and to keep lower paid footballers in a job. I doubt that will happen though, as the "I'm all right Jack" response, would be likely from the cash rich clubs and league officials, seem to have limited concern for clubs that are not awash with money. There will be quite a few lower league clubs in admin by May 23rd if they have no gate receipts. I know a few, whom if they miss a couple of games, they will be in bother. Wont be long to you see teams asking their players to defer on their wages for a period of time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abdulaziz1 Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 Just cancel the league without giving a title, send Newcastle, Wolves and Man Utd down, Send West Brom, Leeds and SHA to League 1. We play in CL because we’re the only considered runner ups. Everything is sorted then. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mjvilla Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 2 hours ago, Silent_Bob said: Remember, they are football 'experts', not health experts. So far I have yet to see or hear a health expert saying we should re-start the football sesason in May. I hope nobody will play football just because the likes of Gary Neville think it's safe. I think at best they will play a couple of games so Liverpool can win it. And to be honest, I think they are far more concerned about having a winner than they are about relegations/promotions. Agreed, they arent even football experts. It's mainly Liverpool players who just want to win a league. John Barnes at it this morning. With the absolutely ridiculous comment that we should finish this season even if it means cancelling a future season altogether. Probably the most ridiculous one yet to be honest. Cancel next season completely so Liverpool can win this season. Pathetic and sky showing its colours too if I'm honest. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 2 minutes ago, Mjvilla said: Agreed, they arent even football experts. It's mainly Liverpool players who just want to win a league. John Barnes at it this morning. With the absolutely ridiculous comment that we should finish this season even if it means cancelling a future season altogether. Probably the most ridiculous one yet to be honest. Cancel next season completely so Liverpool can win this season. Pathetic and sky showing its colours too if I'm honest. I wonder whether these football pundits and the PL itself, would be quite so enthusiastic to finish this season, if we were currently 25 points clear of the rest of the PL, rather than Liverpool? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent_Bob Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 2 hours ago, OxfordVillan said: What will be, will be. If we have to play the final 10 games then I’m obviously not against that. What I’m against is playing those final 10 games in a way that disadvantages us compared to games that have gone before. Well, it disadvantages us regardless if a game is to be played in July. Reina won't play and I doubt Heaton would be ready by then. It disadvantages us and quite a lof of other clubs that we won't know which division we're in until perhaps late July. Should we cash in on Grealish to prepare ourselves for the Championship or should we spend another £100m on July 1st to have a chance of survival? Who knows which of our players will be unavailable due to Corona, who knows which of our opposition players will be unavailable? Maybe we're facing the Liverpool Youth team, maybe we need to rely on our Youth team to save us from relegation? Doesn't seem fair either way. But I doubt that there will be anything final on this for the time being. To much money involved, so it's easier to say it's postponed rather than voided. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 I have a sneaking suspicion that we might actually do better in ‘behind closed doors’ games. Plus McGinn should be back and maybe even Heaton/Wes by the time it restarts. That said, would still love to see it voided altogether. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danceoftheshamen Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 With the way VAR has warped things too it can only make sense to void what has basically become a farce of a season. Every other option gives compromised outcomes. Behind closed doors is unfair on teams due to home/crowd advantage which the other team had the benefit of in the return fixture. Stopping the season as it is, is just totally unfair. Not promoting teams from the Championship & other divisions is unfair. Not having playoffs for those teams in those positions is unfair. Holding playoffs is unfair on teams who might have made them had the season finished Relegating teams who could still mathematically survive is unfair. Allowing Liverpool to win anything at all, ever is grossly unfair. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villabromsgrove Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 Premier League bosses will soon be forced to face up to reality. This season isn't going to be finished, no matter what convoluted plans and ideas pundits come up with. Facing reality means that PL bosses have to accept that football has become irrelevant due to the enormity of Coronavirus, so cancelling this season will be just a tiny blip when looked at historically, lost in the aftermath of a world wide catastrophe. 2020 won't be remembered as the year "Liverpool won the league", it will be remembered as the year a pandemic shut down the UK. Wake up PL bosses and accept the inevitable, void this season for the public good and the physical and mental well being of players and staff and their families, unless you want to be portrayed as "Nero fiddling while Rome burns", or "Ostriches with heads firmly buried in the sand". Keep your distance and stay well everyone. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepyvillian Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 The last time we played behind closed doors we won 6 - 0, mind you, our opponents were from Iceland, and this was long before the 2016 Euros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 It's hard to know what the advantages are This is going to skew the mental side of football big time, saw a suggestion that delaying these games until January if needs be would make no difference but that depends on how some of the teams with nothing to play for come back, fortunately we play 3 of them in Everton, Palace and Newcastle, if they get dragged back in May, August, Jan etc then what shape do they come back in? I'd guess not good, how do you get them firing again? Nothing to play for smash through some games and go back on holiday... Theoretically no way do they play at 100% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomav84 Posted March 18, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted March 18, 2020 the fact that behind closed doors are even being considered is concrete proof, should we ever have needed it, that the footballing authorities do not give a monkeys about the fans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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