Demitri_C Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 4 hours ago, theboyangel said: This is why a restart is flawed. What will happen if, when the remaining games are being played a club has another outbreak and self isolate again for 2 weeks? what would stop a struggling club claiming staff have symptoms to add further delay? best thing would be to avoid all leagues and look to restart in September Touch would but lets say a player gets covid19 and passes away then what? They have blood on their hands 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 5 hours ago, LondonLax said: Why is it going to be all ok in September? I don't think this is necessarily crazy, but it is dependent on a massive, war-time mobilisation of healthcare resources. In theory, if we had a lot more lockdown, getting new cases down to low double or even single figures, plus a fully-functional track-and-trace system and lots of randomised testing, you could open large parts of the economy again, enough to play matches behind closed doors or with grounds at say 20% capacity. September would also be before the start of the next flu season, when the risk of returning to lockdown is highest. However, this entire idea would be completely contingent on a mobilisation of healthcare resources that currently seems beyond the government to organise. I don't think that means it couldn't be a goal though. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post OutByEaster? Posted May 2, 2020 Moderator Popular Post Share Posted May 2, 2020 Liverpool are difficult in this. They've got a huge and peculiar fanbase - it's peculiar even by the one eyed standards of football fans, a strangely fundamentalist attitude prevails - their own fansites will often ban talking about certain topics if they feel they're critical of the club. There's an attitude to supporting Liverpool that's peculiar to them - I'm sure that's true of all clubs to an extent but Liverpool's is particularly pronounced. That fanbase is experienced and proficient in campaigning - part of the reason why the Liverpool fanbase is quite so peculiar is linked to how hard they've had to work to get justice for Hillsborough - and rightly so - they're very used to coming together to work on things and it's left them with even more of an "us against the world" attitude than the rest of us. They're organised, potent and effective - there are an awful lot of journalists that don't want to be on the bad side of the Liverpool fanbase. They're the best side in the country - they are, it's silly to say otherwise - they're head and shoulders the best team in the league in the 2019-20 season. They're Champions elect and it's difficult to see any way in which they shouldn't be given the title at this point in any of the proposed ways to finish this season. They've not won the title for a very long time, they've had to watch their rivals win it a lot in that time and they've had to suffer a fair bit of banter from fans of other clubs when they've come close and dropped away - this matters to them - not just the winning, but the justification if you like of their support, that they're "right" that winning the title returns their integrity. It's important to them that they shut us up - that we're left without anything that starts "Yeah but...." The combination of those things - the combination of the importance of winning the title properly and the massive chip on their shoulder, and their ability to deploy that chip has resulted in the ridiculous situation whereby for most Liverpool fans, the only "proper" way to end the season is to play the games; to let them complete their destiny, to let them win properly, integrity is key to justification. Liverpool cannot live with an asterisk. As such, they see any discussion around cancelling the season, or around the various solutions for finishing it early as direct attacks on their integrity, even when those arguments come with the sensible and obvious tag "Liverpool should be declared champions" - the arguments aren't discussed, they aren't even listened to - anything that comes with an asterisk is despised, shot down with rants on how we all hate them, and how we're all "ABL" and just United fans having a moan. Any perspective by the Liverpool fanbase appears to have disappeared. Liverpool should be declared Champions in any situation in which we do not play the remaining games. That's my opinion, I think it makes sense, I think it reflects the way they've played this season, the points they've got and what they've deserved. Liverpool fans will not accept any situation where the remaining games are not played. Therein lies the further problem - you see, the statement above is a complete lie. Liverpool aren't interested in playing nine games - they're interested in playing just enough games to remove the asterisk. There has been no more virulent advocate of increased breaks for players or of less fixtures than Jurgen Klopp, and judging by the reaction from the supporter base when they sent their youth team to Villa Park, the fanbase is behind him on that. (I suspect they'd be behind him if he said they should all wear a top hat, but that's beside the point). If we complete the season this year, we're about to go into a two and a half year stretch of football where the expectations on players and clubs to complete fixtures will be more extreme than at any time in football history. We have a world cup starting in November 2022 - that's 30 months away - during that time we'll have a European Championships next summer, two full campaigns of European club football, plus the end of the current one and the start of the 2022-23 one, we'll have World cup qualifying, an AFCON, two European nations cup competitions, two World Club cup competitions, two full FA Cup competitions and the end of the current one, and two full League Cup competitions plus the start of the 2022-23 one; Oh, and the small matter of the end of this Premier league season, the whole of next season, the whole of the season after and the start of the 2022-23 season. We'll have clubs like Wolves potentially starting their 2020-21 Europa league campaign before they've finished their 2019-20 campaign, we'll have a 2020-21 season that barely has a break before the Euro's start and then a curtailed pre-season as players come back for the 2021-22 season - we'll need the 2022-23 season to start early to make room for the World Cup , so a limited summer break in 2022 as well. It is going to be utter chaos. I can feel Jurgen Klopp's eye twitching at the thought of it. With that in mind, if we do play the remains of this season out, and Jurgen wins the first two games of Project Restart - does anyone really believe he won't take the whole of the first team and put them in cotton wool immediately? Once the asterisk is removed, Liverpool's desire for sporting integrity ends - and relegation places will then be affected by who gets to play Liverpool's youth team in the last seven games. It's not just the rest either - if Jurgen can win the title in a game or two, he can then concentrate on preparing his side for next season properly rather than rummaging about in the ashes of this one - Manchester United will be competing hard for a European place long after the boys from Anfield have their feet up. Of course, it's not just Liverpool that applies to, there will be other clubs that very quickly don't care and will be eyeing up one of the only periods of rest available for a couple of years - not to mention the competitive advantage of spending more time preparing for 2020-21. The last few games of the league could be reduced to a simple contest of who still cares, It'll be comical; a farce. I don't want to be relegated on that basis. No one thinks playing nine more games is important for sporting integrity. Liverpool fans want two so that they can kill the asterisk, the Premier league just wants product so that they can collect the money. It's ridiculous. We're asking Liverpool fans to accept that they're Champions, to live with that asterisk and to know that they've earned the title without finishing the games - and we're asking despite the fact that we're the people that have pushed them into having to defend against the asterisk in the first place. That's a big ask for them, it's hard to swallow - but they're asking us to swallow a lot more, they're asking football to give up an awful lot of its integrity in order to accommodate their own. 21 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 @OutByEaster? I can't argue with that well thought out response. Pretty spot on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post villa4europe Posted May 2, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 2, 2020 excellent post OBE think the only thing missing is that said Liverpool fan you've perfectly described is 42 years old, lives in Kidderminster, doesn't go to games, gets a stadium tour as a birthday present every year, owns 70% of the merch catalogue and right now is strolling around tescos in his Liverpool trackie top 2 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 16 minutes ago, villa4europe said: excellent post OBE think the only thing missing is that said Liverpool fan you've perfectly described is 42 years old, lives in Kidderminster, doesn't go to games, gets a stadium tour as a birthday present every year, owns 70% of the merch catalogue and right now is strolling around tescos in his Liverpool trackie top I work with someone exactly like that. And what a prick he is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted May 2, 2020 Administrator Share Posted May 2, 2020 21 minutes ago, villa4europe said: excellent post OBE think the only thing missing is that said Liverpool fan you've perfectly described is 42 years old, lives in Kidderminster, doesn't go to games, gets a stadium tour as a birthday present every year, owns 70% of the merch catalogue and right now is strolling around tescos in his Liverpool trackie top Is his name Edward? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 4 minutes ago, limpid said: Is his name Edward? I was thinking Tony Has a liver bird painted on his house 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted May 2, 2020 Administrator Share Posted May 2, 2020 1 hour ago, villa4europe said: I was thinking Tony Has a liver bird painted on his house He probably knows Edward though - the description was almost perfect. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 On 01/05/2020 at 15:59, villa4europe said: I've seen talksport running a bullshit story about a sky source claiming they're looking in to CGI crowds for behind closed door games Same with nevilles games abroad idea I don't think either will happen but what is interesting is that the media is moving to fan the flames at the moment, they keep throwing out bullshit ideas that they know will wind people up, they're trying to make people angry about football returning rather than promoting it returning, they're not creating demand they're creating disillusionment Just going back to this, I think you're imagining a media that is being tactical about things when it really isn't. Football pundits are not coming up with bad ideas because they're trying to perform a complicated double-manouever which makes the public hate the idea, they're coming up with bad ideas because they don't understand anything about the virus and people keep asking them questions even though there's no football on, so they have to try and say something. The simple truth is the media is desperate for football to start again, viz the Scum today: It would be interesting to know how their sales have been since footie stopped. My impression is an awful lot of people buy that rag just to read the back pages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhan_Zhuang Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 Well they aren't buying it to look at t****** anymore, can't think what else it's good for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, OutByEaster? said: Liverpool should be declared Champions in any situation in which we do not play the remaining games Great post but I don’t agree with this in the wider context, yes they’re are by far the best team in England this year and will win it if they get a few more games. The problem with giving Liverpool the title they have not mathematically won means you have to relegate the bottom 3 who are not mathematically down (far from it). Then the Championship, do you promote the top 2 or 3 even though they’ve not mathematically done enough (again, far from it). You can’t make 1 rule for the PL champions because they’d have won it anyway and a different rule for the relegation and promotion. You have to do all, or none, and I can see a lot of issues with extending the table freeze to everyone else Edited May 2, 2020 by Genie 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WakefieldVillan Posted May 2, 2020 Share Posted May 2, 2020 @OutByEaster? fantastic post, sums Liverpool fans up perfectly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 7 hours ago, Genie said: Great post but I don’t agree with this in the wider context, yes they’re are by far the best team in England this year and will win it if they get a few more games. The problem with giving Liverpool the title they have not mathematically won means you have to relegate the bottom 3 who are not mathematically down (far from it). Then the Championship, do you promote the top 2 or 3 even though they’ve not mathematically done enough (again, far from it). You can’t make 1 rule for the PL champions because they’d have won it anyway and a different rule for the relegation and promotion. You have to do all, or none, and I can see a lot of issues with extending the table freeze to everyone else I don't see why they can't take a vote on each issue separately myself. Common sense would say Liverpool would definitely be champions, any of about half a dozen teams could go down so no relegation, then the PL can just invite a couple of teams from the Championship but hand the responsibility to them to sort out which ones. It seems a simple case of everyone using their common sense in an unprecedented situation. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 8 hours ago, Genie said: Great post but I don’t agree with this in the wider context, yes they’re are by far the best team in England this year and will win it if they get a few more games. The problem with giving Liverpool the title they have not mathematically won means you have to relegate the bottom 3 who are not mathematically down (far from it). Then the Championship, do you promote the top 2 or 3 even though they’ve not mathematically done enough (again, far from it). You can’t make 1 rule for the PL champions because they’d have won it anyway and a different rule for the relegation and promotion. You have to do all, or none, and I can see a lot of issues with extending the table freeze to everyone else Why can’t you? If all 20 clubs agree then you can do anything you like really. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 3 hours ago, LondonLax said: Why can’t you? If all 20 clubs agree then you can do anything you like really. It will be ugly and messy. You can’t apply different rules to different situations. It would either have to be final table stands, PPG, complete the games or void the season for all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted May 3, 2020 Author Share Posted May 3, 2020 Brighton are unhappy with playing on neutral grounds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, sharkyvilla said: I don't see why they can't take a vote on each issue separately myself. Common sense would say Liverpool would definitely be champions, any of about half a dozen teams could go down so no relegation, then the PL can just invite a couple of teams from the Championship but hand the responsibility to them to sort out which ones. It seems a simple case of everyone using their common sense in an unprecedented situation. I think you’re being immensely naive. This is big business, 100’s of millions at stake. People’s livelihoods on the line. Edited May 3, 2020 by Genie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhan_Zhuang Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 1 hour ago, Zatman said: Brighton are unhappy with playing on neutral grounds Wet Spam also making noises, I'd imagine Villa too would be in opposition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Zhan_Zhuang said: Wet Spam also making noises, I'd imagine Villa too would be in opposition. Teams at the bottom can’t afford to give away home advantage for half their remaining games. Edited May 3, 2020 by Genie 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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