Coronavirus could prevent Liverpool from winning the Premier League title

[Captain Howdy]

14 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

Holt sounds like he's backstroking quicker than an Olympic Gold medalist in his latest article https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8280993/OLIVER-HOLT-desperate-football-rush-happy-risk-causing-damage.html

 

The latest is League One and Two look to be on the verge of cancelling. The Championship want to start up and resolve promotion with the PL saying if there's no relegation, there's no incentive to play or at the very least, be competitive.

 

As i mentioned before, clubs in the PL going bust will focus minds. Maybe a few PL clubs think they could avoid paying back Sky, BT, Amazon but the penny's dropped the overseas rights, which are more than the domestic rights under this contract, will not be as forgiving?

I think his argument is to not rush back but that there’s no need to null and void.

[No2]

I have no issue with what the Brighton chairman said there, he's right that isn't fair teams around them have had 15 home games and they have only had 14.

 

It's also quite an easy to sort, once the public have accepted the return of football then then opening up 20 stadiums will be the easy part. Relegation cripples them, their accounts look worse than everyone bar Everton so I can understand their concern.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Teams have to be relegated you cannot reward failure. Unless your Taffs Tavern.

[dockers_strike]

19 minutes ago, No2 said:

I have no issue with what the Brighton chairman said there, he's right that isn't fair teams around them have had 15 home games and they have only had 14.

 

It's also quite an easy to sort, once the public have accepted the return of football then then opening up 20 stadiums will be the easy part. Relegation cripples them, their accounts look worse than everyone bar Everton so I can understand their concern.

We're giving up the very real likelihood of winning our first title in 30 years in front of our own fans. The title presentation if made, will be a very low key affair. All clubs should be onside with making some sacrifice to get the league finished instead of looking for reasons to stop it.

 

I dont believe playing on your own ground with no fans in side is any different to doing the same on a neutral ground.

 

But that's just me.

[Bobby Hundreds]

They won't have to play in intimidating away grounds. It's an excuse. Is it fair you draw man city in the FA cup and your local rival gets Rochdale. You just fucking deal with the situation at hand. Corona virus means there's got to be compromise. 75 percent of the season is done you've laid the foundations and built the walls of your season already. 

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

If certain PL teams had to negotiate their own deals they would be amateurs with 3 years.

[No2]

9 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

They won't have to play in intimidating away grounds. It's an excuse. Is it fair you draw man city in the FA cup and your local rival gets Rochdale. You just fucking deal with the situation at hand. Corona virus means there's got to be compromise. 75 percent of the season is done you've laid the foundations and built the walls of your season already. 

Obviously it's an excuse but Its an easy one to call them on and let them have it. Let the bottom 10 teams have all their games at home if needs be.

[TheHowieLama]

2 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

 

Just checked, Brighton have played 16 home Premier League before the league was suspended. They've won just 5 of those games.

Considering they only have 6 wins in total this season they may have a point

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

somevteams will play better without their crowd on their backs.

[TheDrowningMan]

35 minutes ago, No2 said:

Obviously it's an excuse but Its an easy one to call them on and let them have it. Let the bottom 10 teams have all their games at home if needs be.

And dock them 10 points if fans turn up outside the stadium / they’re unable to provide away teams with safe accommodation near to the ground.

[Reckoner]

Why are they talking about neutral venues? I don’t get the logic behind it 

[dockers_strike]

6 minutes ago, Reckoner said:

Why are they talking about neutral venues? I don’t get the logic behind it 

I think the idea is, to lessen the chances of any spread or contracting the virus, is to play games in empty stadium that arent like, say Anfield, in a residential area. Ergo, limit the stadiums available to host games and to be fair, no team can play in their own grounds.

 

Would I be ok with us playing all our games somewhere else but city playing all their's at the emptihad? Probably not but Id give it a go to shut the fucking mancs up, see how many of their fans would actually turn up while we crack on.

[s(k)aturation]

7 minutes ago, Reckoner said:

Why are they talking about neutral venues? I don’t get the logic behind it 

 

To stop the hordes of irresponsible home supporters that will gather outside their own respective home grounds, apparently.

 

 

[Ronnie Whelan]

I saw Norwich's remaining fixtures and to be fair if I was a Canary, I would be thinking a lot of winnable home games. However, the thing is most teams are giving up something. Our title win will be the biggest anti-climax in a random stadium behind closed doors. Jurgen and the lads deserve their moment which they won't get. I think as fans we will just be happy to win it and with everything going on, it would be hard to celebrate the way i always dreamt.

 

 

[Reckoner]

I think assuming we will break social distancing is quite insulting to football fans

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

 Celebrate at home, getting the title after 30 years will be great. Anti climax or not.

Just the way it is.

[Ne Moe Imya]

7 minutes ago, Reckoner said:

I think assuming we will break social distancing is quite insulting to football fans

I mean, for most of us, sure.

 

But will there be a small percentage of idiots? Definitely. And when you're a club as massive as Liverpool, the small percentage still adds up to a large number of people.

 

I think there would definitely be hundreds if not a few thousand people outside the ground if we won it at Anfield behind closed doors.

[dockers_strike]

Just now, Ne Moe Imya said:

I mean, for most of us, sure.

 

But will there be a small percentage of idiots? Definitely. And when you're a club as massive as Liverpool, the small percentage still adds up to a large number of people.

 

I think there would definitely be hundreds if not a few thousand people outside the ground if we won it at Anfield behind closed doors.

Yeah, it's always the type to think they'd be the 'only' one who turn up and when they get to the ground, there's a couple of hundred so they get on social media and loads more descend.

[dockers_strike]

Breaking, Italian Government green lights Serie A re start training proposals.

 

The Italian government has given the green light for football clubs to return to their training grounds after a number of Serie A sides announced their intention to come back next week.

Sassuolo were the first top-flight club in Italy to confirm a return to training before Bologna, Parma and Roma followed suit. 

The government had originally decreed that athletes in team sports were different from those involved in individual disciplines, such as tennis or athletics, even if their training exercises were identical.

This meant the public could go for a run in local parks from Monday next week but team sports remained banned until May 18.

But with some regional assemblies deciding to re-open all sports facilities from Monday rather than waiting until May 18, the government conceded it was pointless to limit some areas while others had the go-ahead.

The Serie A clubs and the Italian players' association successfully argued that it is far safer to train inside a training ground where social distancing can be guaranteed rather than in a local park.

But despite the planned return to training, there are no guarantees the Serie A season will actually restart despite all 20 clubs voting that they wish to complete the 2019-20 campaign.

Players have admitted to being sceptical of the decision to return to training and Sportsmail understands there is a 60/40 split as to whether the season should continue or be cancelled.

Discussions over the medical protocol for restarting the season will continue this week with a potential resumption in mid-June one option on the table.

The news comes despite another 474 lives being lost to the virus in Italy on Saturday, marking a leap of more than 200 in the daily death toll, which now stands at 28,710.

The daily death toll had dropped to 269 on Friday but that progress suffered a setback with an upturn in cases again.

At present, there have been more than 200,000 positive tests of COVID-19 in the country, with around half of those still currently active.

 

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-8282219/Coronavirus-Italy-Government-gives-clear-Serie-clubs-return-training-grounds.html

[Pete]

Just read that the relegation threatened teams are only willing to play at neutral grounds if the threat of relegation is removed??? How the fuck is that not compromising the league yet declaring us league champions is a massive no no? 

[Supremolad]

3 minutes ago, Pete said:

Just read that the relegation threatened teams are only willing to play at neutral grounds if the threat of relegation is removed??? How the fuck is that not compromising the league yet declaring us league champions is a massive no no? 

Some are saying it isn't fair on the relegation threatened clubs to change the rules of the competition by asking them to play at neutral venues. 

 

Then the same clubs turn around and ask for the rules to be changed for them to avoid relegation. It's all bollocks. 

[Lee909]

4 hours ago, TheDrowningMan said:

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has entered the conversation:

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/crystal-palace-liverpool-fc-premier-league-project-restart-a4430491.html

 

 

 

Fair play, first open and honest response I've read

[Lee909]

Fans will turn up if we win the league. Maybe not thousands but enough will. You have enough fans and you'll get a number of dickheads

[AngryOfTuebrook]

58 minutes ago, Pete said:

Just read that the relegation threatened teams are only willing to play at neutral grounds if the threat of relegation is removed??? How the fuck is that not compromising the league yet declaring us league champions is a massive no no? 

The lawyers of the top Championship teams must be salivating at that.

[TheDrowningMan]

24 minutes ago, Lee909 said:

Fair play, first open and honest response I've read

Here’s the full article, which does an even better job of showing up the opportunistic naysayers.

 

https://www.cpfc.co.uk/news/2020/may/chairman-steve-parish-premier-league-project-restart--crystal-palace/

 

Quote

Finally, and this is key, if we cannot play out the end of this season, why can we necessarily start the next one in August or September? Are we convinced things will look so much different from how they do today? Many of the same issues regarding player welfare, venues and closed-doors matches will exist then. The more we can work out now, the better chance we have of coming out of this with the game we all love in position to recover over time.

I think Javier Tebas, the La Liga president, had it right when justifying steps to try to restart in Spain. He said: “I do not understand why there would be more danger in playing football behind closed doors, with all precautionary measures, than working on an assembly line, being on a fishing boat on the high seas.”