Coronavirus could prevent Liverpool from winning the Premier League title

[dockers_strike]

22 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

I can’t see FIFA winning a case in court if they try to argue that clubs must release players they pay for internationals if it means the players have to quarantine on return. La Liga set to challenge them in court by the looks.

 

I dont normally have time for Real but good on them on this. Clubs need to clip FIFA's wings.

 

It's fucking ridiculous FIFA say 2 or 3 weeks into major league campaigns, we'll have an international break now lads and, there's fuck all you can do about it. Oh and by the way, your players will play 3 internationals instead of 2 and we'll allow our confederations to schedule games such that some of them wont have time to get back and train with their clubs before your leagues restart even if they dont have to quarantine.

 

The major European league should be over this farce like a rash.

[Vincent Vega]

They need to get rid of the international breaks and have all the international qualifiers either before the season starts, or after the season ends. This could easily be accommodated because the league seasons would be shorter without the four or five international breaks we currently have to fit in.

[Anubis]

45 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

I can’t see FIFA winning a case in court if they try to argue that clubs must release players they pay for internationals if it means the players have to quarantine on return. La Liga set to challenge them in court by the looks.

 

 

18 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

I dont normally have time for Real but good on them on this. Clubs need to clip FIFA's wings.

 

It's fucking ridiculous FIFA say 2 or 3 weeks into major league campaigns, we'll have an international break now lads and, there's fuck all you can do about it. Oh and by the way, your players will play 3 internationals instead of 2 and we'll allow our confederations to schedule games such that some of them wont have time to get back and train with their clubs before your leagues restart even if they dont have to quarantine.

 

The major European league should be over this farce like a rash.

Take it to the Harvey Elliot thread.

[Vincent Vega]

3 minutes ago, Anubis said:

 

Take it to the Harvey Elliot thread.

Haha, I couldn’t remember which thread all that discussion took place in, so thought this was the next most appropriate.

[dockers_strike]

23 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

They need to get rid of the international breaks and have all the international qualifiers either before the season starts, or after the season ends. This could easily be accommodated because the league seasons would be shorter without the four or five international breaks we currently have to fit in.

I really dont see why international managers need a 'warm up' international before international qualifiers. Just go straight to the game. It would be the same for all so no one would have an advantage.

[Scott_M]

1 hour ago, Vincent Vega said:

I can’t see FIFA winning a case in court if they try to argue that clubs must release players they pay for internationals if it means the players have to quarantine on return. La Liga set to challenge them in court by the looks.

 

Is this in relation to the additional game on the Thursday night / Friday morning the South American’s have squeezed in?

 

If so, I agree with La Liga, however, it should have been done sooner. They can’t leave it until just before the break to complain.

 

Conembol can’t start demanding stuff off clubs for their continent’s failings. They need to come up with alternative solutions. 

I’m glad Brazil are due to be at home that Friday morning, otherwise we’d be without players for the Leeds game and that’s before you take the quarantine issue into it.

[aws]

South Americans should be told to split qualification into two leagues of five. Ridiculous that each team plays 18 qualifiers. 

[Barrington Womble]

2 hours ago, Vincent Vega said:

They need to get rid of the international breaks and have all the international qualifiers either before the season starts, or after the season ends. This could easily be accommodated because the league seasons would be shorter without the four or five international breaks we currently have to fit in.

Been saying this for years. It would even make life cheaper for the smaller nations as the managers and coaches needn't be full time. 

18 minutes ago, aws said:

South Americans should be told to split qualification into two leagues of five. Ridiculous that each team plays 18 qualifiers. 

That's another bug bear of mine. $$$$$ again. Fuck all to do with football. 

[lifetime fan]

2 hours ago, Vincent Vega said:

They need to get rid of the international breaks and have all the international qualifiers either before the season starts, or after the season ends. This could easily be accommodated because the league seasons would be shorter without the four or five international breaks we currently have to fit in.

Preferably at the end of the season! 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, lifetime fan said:

Preferably at the end of the season! 

Wouldn't that also be before the next season starts? So it's at the end and the beginning!

[lifetime fan]

6 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

Wouldn't that also be before the next season starts? So it's at the end and the beginning!

Finish the league season, straight into the internationals and then let the players have a holiday/preseason before starting the proper football to get over any injuries. 

[Megadrive Man]

3 hours ago, aws said:

South Americans should be told to split qualification into two leagues of five. Ridiculous that each team plays 18 qualifiers. 

Pointless as well as Brazil and Argentina always qualify.

[VladimirIlyich]

18 hours ago, Vincent Vega said:

They need to get rid of the international breaks and have all the international qualifiers either before the season starts, or after the season ends. This could easily be accommodated because the league seasons would be shorter without the four or five international breaks we currently have to fit in.

Absolutely correct. The lateness of next year's World Cup gives extra time in the summer too.

[Vincent Vega]

37 fans thought to have died after attending the match against Atletico on 11th March last year. I think we all accept that Covid-19 was ripping through the country anyway but it felt reckless in the extreme at the time for this match to go ahead, especially as Madrid had gone into a lockdown due to a surge in cases. There are reds fans who might still be here today if it wasn’t for the cavalier attitude of Johnson and his bunch of incompetents.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/oct/15/liverpool-v-atletico-placed-fans-in-danger-will-anyone-be-held-to-account
 

Liverpool v Atlético placed fans in danger: will anyone be held to account?

Barney Ronay
MPs’ report on Covid crisis states 37 people died unnecessarily because of Champions League match – it was not an event staged in ignorance

 

It has been the way of the last 18 months that each week seems to bring some new moment of double-take. Horrors, failures, bodge-jobs. They just keep on looming up into view like icebergs in the fog.

 

It happened again this week. Perhaps we all have outrage fatigue by now, or just a shared sense of being beaten down, lassoed by whataboutery and tribalism. But this really did happen, and it happened in sport.

 

The preliminary report on the handling of the Covid-19 crisis by the government and Boris Johnson was published on Tuesday. It praises some elements, notably the response of NHS workers to a national emergency. It describes a series of delayed responses and muddled procedures. On page 34 it states, with a startling clarity, that 37 people died unnecessarily because of the decision to stage the Champions League match between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid at Anfield on 11 March, just as the shutters were going down all over Europe.

 

This conclusion is reached during a summary of the tactics in those early days. There was an understandable state of ignorance of where this was heading. Still, there was also a certainty – exactly why is still not clear – that taking too many measures at once would be wrong. The day before Anfield, Johnson had talked on national TV about “taking it on the chin” and “allowing the disease, as it were, to move through the population”. And so, chin raised and fingers crossed, the herd headed off to Anfield.

 

The report concludes: “This approach meant that events that may have spread the virus proceeded, such as the football match between Liverpool FC and Atlético Madrid – the day the coronavirus was categorised as a pandemic by the WHO – and the Cheltenham Festival of Racing … Subsequent analysis suggest that there were an additional 37 and 41 deaths respectively at local hospitals after these events.”

 

BBC Sport correspondent Dan Roan flagged this part of the report on social media. Like me, you might have missed it otherwise. And it still seems startling to see those words in print: 37 dead after Anfield, 41 after Cheltenham.
 

The report suggests this was an avoidable consequence, sport’s allocation of what would, in any other iteration of the national mood, be treated as a genuine scandal. Will anyone be held to account for these deaths? They deserve, at the very least, some space.

 

I was at Anfield that night. It was not an event staged in a state of ignorance. Italy had shut down its football. The rugby had been postponed. There were questions to Jürgen Klopp the day before. Should this be going ahead? Klopp seemed torn between his private misgivings (basically: no, it shouldn’t) and the obligation to do his job and manage the people around him.

 

Three thousand Spanish fans had travelled to Liverpool, despite the fact schools had shut down in Madrid. Looking around that rain-sodden full house there was a feeling of unreality. I remember queuing for a cup of tea alongside journalists from all around the world and thinking: ‘Is this really OK? Is this where it happens? Which of us is carrying that spot?’

 

Liverpool lost in extra time. I was booked at a hotel, but drove home overnight instead, with a feeling all the way of distress signals, red flags, the world closing in. The next day Mikel Arteta tested positive. And from that point it was all off, plague laws bubbling up, the cold hard shock of that first national lockdown looming into view.

 

What is the mitigation here? There was no real public clamour for postponing at the time. In any case Covid was everywhere by then, the borders open, schools still petri-dishing away. Similarly, you might question the basic value of closures. Probably those exposed would have caught the virus anyway (although they might also have waited for the vaccine, or shielded others). There is an argument shuttering away otherwise healthy people just isn’t worth it. The spread of a novel disease will be delayed. Meanwhile, welcome to a hell of a different type.
 

So much for the excuses. Politicians and decision-makers will continue to hide behind the general difficulty of the times, rather than face the measurable consequences of their actions. The fact remains, it is the role of those in power not just to make these calls, but to make them in the right spirit.

 

Perhaps the real issue with Anfield and those 37 deaths, the problem with how it feels, is that sense of an absence of care. It seemed wrong to be in the stadium. But with a less perfidious prime minister you might at least have felt that decision came only from a place of good faith. Instead it is hard to shake the sense this was simply the toss of coin, that the opposite decision, calling it all off, would have been made with just the same level of try-it-and-see. It is a great misfortune that the country has had the most unsuitable, essentially unserious person in charge in its time of need.

 

Let the record show it was left to the Premier League and EFL to postpone their programmes. Not to mention the fact all of this, from letting the herd take the hit, to fudged thinking, to measurable deaths around sporting events, should be presented with no human touch, no explanation, no apologies. Johnson was on a beach this week.

 

One suggestion: Atlético will play at Anfield again next month, 20 months on from that Pandemic Day fixture. It would seem like a nice thing to offer some kind of tribute on the night for those who were placed in danger last time around, the 37 in Liverpool, the 41 in Cheltenham. For now all we have is a government report, and the sense of just another note of loss in the fog.

[Shitty Arse]

Bump

[AngryOfTuebrook]

18 minutes ago, Shitty Arse said:

Bump

Why?

[manwiththestick]

11 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

Why?

Live's are at stake.

[Shitty Arse]

9 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

Why?

More to discuss the potential impact over the next few weeks etc. 42 players tested positive in last round of testing. It’s looking like we will be heading towards some fixture disruption. I hope they don’t start with all the closed doors shit again.

[Ronnie Whelan]

My doctor (old school bluenose) who is sound said to me a few weeks ago that covid could cause a bit of disruption to the calendar in January/February and that was before the new variant. He reckoned it could lead to games behind closed doors - he said the one good thing Covid could do would be giving him a break from watching the blueshite live in person.

 

If we go behind closed doors, that will impact us as Anfield with our current team is worth a goal head start. Even away games impacts our team as we thrive on atmosphere whereas City love the sterile feel of an empty stadium. You would have to think that the likes of Chelsea and City with their huge squads would stand to benefit, but depending on a given game day and players out, they could drop silly points. 

 

I do have a sense we have the most professional bunch of lads around, so while the variant is going to lead to all kinds of outbreaks, our lads seem a little less likely to be going to Kyle Walker style events which might mitigate against some things. Another aspect is that the afcon and south american qualifiers might not go ahead.

 

 

[Preston Red]

I reckon we get AFCON shifted. Lives at stake and so on.

[dockers_strike]

45 minutes ago, Ronnie Whelan said:

My doctor (old school bluenose) who is sound said to me a few weeks ago that covid could cause a bit of disruption to the calendar in January/February and that was before the new variant. He reckoned it could lead to games behind closed doors - he said the one good thing Covid could do would be giving him a break from watching the blueshite live in person.

 

If we go behind closed doors, that will impact us as Anfield with our current team is worth a goal head start. Even away games impacts our team as we thrive on atmosphere whereas City love the sterile feel of an empty stadium. You would have to think that the likes of Chelsea and City with their huge squads would stand to benefit, but depending on a given game day and players out, they could drop silly points. 

 

I do have a sense we have the most professional bunch of lads around, so while the variant is going to lead to all kinds of outbreaks, our lads seem a little less likely to be going to Kyle Walker style events which might mitigate against some things. Another aspect is that the afcon and south american qualifiers might not go ahead.

 

 

Good post, Ronnie. Thing is, our players have to get up close to oppo players in games. Im majorly surprised we havent had any positive tests after the Villa game considering less than 24 hours later, they closed their training ground because a number of their players returned positive tests.

 

We're also due to play spurs on Sunday and they're a hot bed of positive tests at the moment. If we have any PL games postponed due to covid, the club better make sure we dont get stiffed for playing them during the time Mo, Sadio and Keita are away at the ACON.

[TheHowieLama]

8 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

Good post, Ronnie. Thing is, our players have to get up close to oppo players in games.

I don't think there have been alot (maybe any) instances of player to player transmission between opposing teams. 

They are never close enough for long enough during a game - as well as it being outside.

 

[dockers_strike]

1 hour ago, TheHowieLama said:

I don't think there have been alot (maybe any) instances of player to player transmission between opposing teams. 

They are never close enough for long enough during a game - as well as it being outside.

 

Omicron is supposedly far more transmissable.

[TheHowieLama]

1 minute ago, dockers_strike said:

Omicron is supposedly far more transmissable.

Yea, I still think it would be difficult. Think how long opposing players are around each other during a game, it is usually seconds at a time. Maybe 30 seconds at a set piece.

If anything the ref is the most at risk as you have groups of buffoons in his face.

[Megadrive Man]

Man United vs Brentford called off tomorrow due to Covid

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59646845