Supremolad

The clubs kicking up a fuss about neutral venues are surely taking the piss. All remaining games are to be played behind closed doors anyway, so there is hardly any home advantage to be had if they did play it at home.

Portuguese league to restart on May 30.

Glenn Murray is already crying it on Skysports. Saying the hygienic conditions and rules being proposed for the restart are "farcical". If players are going to say they are scared to play out the season, then they should be forced to donate all the wages they would be paid for the two uncompleted months, in my opinion.

I have resigned to the fact that the season won't be completed. Especially with info coming out that Sky and BT were ready to negotiate about the money which would be owed them. I'm guessing the owners of the overseas broadcast rights would also be willing to do so eventually. With the threat of financial ruin lifted off many teams, it would be easier to convince them to cancel the remainder of the season. The main issue now is whether the PL would follow the footsteps of Belgium and Scotland by announcing an intention to crown Champions, or if they weasel their way out of it like the Dutch.

Yep. Mentioned a similar scenario earlier in the thread. Desperate teams won't even need to get their whole squad infected. 2 or 3 players testing positive would be enough to bring in the shouts for the restart to be ended.

Sigh. This shit is really stressing me out now. Fuck these Dutch cunts. They should just have tossed a coin or something to declare a Champion in their top league. I know that in England it won't be only up to the PL to decide regarding promotions and relegations. EFL clubs also get a say. It'll all come down to a vote. However the longer this shit goes on, I am no longer completely confident that a majority of English clubs would vote for the right course of action to be taken.

If they crown PSG champions, then it would be difficult to deny promotion for the team topping the lower league. They simply have to ensure promotion across all the leagues or they would leave themselves open to legal action, as already seen in the Dutch league.

The least complictaed way to curtail it without causing too many legal challenges would be to 1. Have Liverpool as Champions. 2. Don't relegate any from the PL or other EFL leagues. 3. Promote the current top 2 from the Championship and other lower leagues. While I still think the Dutch were daft cunts for not announcing a Champion, there is the mitigating factor of their top 2 being level on points. So they couldn't be separated on points per game (which UEFA had advocated). The biggest blow to us would only occur if the other big 5 leagues decide not to announce a Champion after curtailing their seasons. So in that regard, we really need France to announce PSG as Champions. Belgium and Scotland have already showed that is the right path to take on that front.

Yeah, that's a feasible solution. The problem is if someone tests positive, the current medical advice is that everyone they have been in contact with, in the days leading up to their test must self isolate for 2 weeks. And in this case, that would include the infected player's teammates, managers and/or opponents. All of them having to self isolate for 2 weeks whether they show symptoms or not. So unless those medical guidelines are relaxed, it is something which has the potential of fucking up the season restart.

For me, the restarting of various leagues isn't the issue. The big question is what happens when a few players conveniently/inconveniently get infected days into the restart? What's the contingency plan? Does the season then pause again at that point? I think if that happens, then the season would definitely get curtailed because that's when the calls for null and void would get loudest. So they really need to be clear upfront about what would happen if players get infected after the restart.

Regarding an asterix title, whichever way we won it, there were cunts waiting to discredit us anyway. Even before coronavirus came into the picture, some people were already saying it was a "tainted title" for us. "Oh, Liverpool only won because VAR was introduced that season" or "They didnt win it unbeaten" or "Well, they didnt win a treble with it" etc. So to me it doesn't matter whichever way number 19 comes. Because there would always be cunts who'd like to piss on our parade anyway.

And for the likes of Lineker or Kilbane, what's wrong with using the method Belgium and Scotland decided to have for finishing their leagues? Why does England have to follow the Dutch version and not Belgium or Scotland who have announced Champions? Fucking pricks.

That article from the Athletic about UEFA's stance echoed what I typed earlier in this thread. They left the door open for the Dutch to be daft cunts. UEFA should have been explicit. Finish your leagues which way you can, declare a Champion and try to ensure a fair means of relegation and promotion. If you don't keep to any of these rules, your clubs are suspended from European competition next season. End of. Instead, they let out a few loose statements about sporting integrity and merit which the Dutch have now exploited, causing chaos in the process

I agree with your sentiments. No offence taken. The issue is UEFA didnt explicitly state that a champion has to be declared in all leagues. That's the loophole I'm talking about. Of course, I am sure they think their words 'sporting merit and integrity' would indicate that leagues need crowned champions. Immediately UEFA wavered from their initial stance of "ALL leagues should be completed", this shite pulled by the Dutch was bound to happen.

I don't think it would be easy for England to go down the route of no promotion from the EFL. Leeds and West Brom for example would be losing out on hundreds of millions. They certainly wont be sitting on their arses while that decision is taken. They would be straight on to their legal teams threatening to sue. And crucially, I think it was stated some weeks ago that the Premier League cant solely take such a decision like the Dutch have, because all the EFL teams each carry a vote in such matters. So yeah, I'm starting to be optimistic again.

I think UEFA were stupid for letting the Dutch have a loophole. As pointed out by the ESPN guy, now the Dutch can put in their clubs for European competition next season using UEFA's "sporting merit" based off their final table of this season. And they can claim they didnt void this season because that would have resulted in them having to use the final table from the 2018/19 season. It's all bollocks.

Your last line is churlish and ridiculous. No need for it. Not all families get to visit all teams before and during international tournaments. If you think so, then you haven't been paying close enough attention over the decades. Yes, some managers allow for visitation during international tournaments and some don't. That's why I said it isn't unheard of. And again, you want to pretend that asking them to stay isolated in camp for 2 months during a pandemic is to their detriment. When actually, it would be for their own safety and their family's, to limit the risk of the players picking an infection. It is the best of a range of options.

It isn't unheard of for footballers to be away from their families for extended periods. When international tournaments are held (e.g World cup and Euros), many teams have strict training camps for weeks and some teams who go far in the tournament might spend up to 6 weeks without seeing their family. Asking players to isolate in a quarantine camp for up to 2 months isn't ideal but it is the best solution to protect themselves and their families from the risk of infection if/when the season is restarted.

Even in the unlikely scenario that they do write off 370m, I doubt the international broadcasters who have also paid hundreds of millions for PL rights would be so charitable.

To avoid compromising the restart of the season through players inconveniently or conveniently getting infected, I think the best solution was one suggested a few weeks ago. After testing, put all the teams, refs, media people etc into a 5 week quarantine in hotels, like a world cup training camp. Strict security to be enforced. No going back home to your family in that period. Use only a few neutral venues for all games and the only allowed movement for anyone in that period is from hotel to stadium and back. That way, the chances of compromising the restart of the season will be minimised imo.

The main issue for me is what happens if they do restart in June and then after a couple games, a player or two get infected? Does the whole thing stop again while they and teammates or opponents go into self isolation for another 2 weeks? If so, putting on my cynical hat, what's stopping a player from Leicester or Chelsea for example, conveniently getting infected to halt the league again at that point? Because at that stage, if it has to be halted again, the subsequent decision would certainly be to call the table as final. Leading to Leicester & Chelsea's CL qualification.

Origi playing from the left is the single most annoying decision consistently taken. I see people slag Origi off for being shite but in the last couple games when he started at centre forward this season, he scored twice vs Arsenal and twice vs Everton. Center forward is Origi's best position. Klopp really has to ditch this experiment of playing him on the left. He is always absolutely woeful there as Dave correctly pointed out.

Just watched Neville's Soccerbox episode which featured Michael Owen. Here are his quotes towards the end of the episode when Neville asked him about his controversial move to Utd- "The last thing I am going to do is apologise because I loved the 3 years I was at Man Utd. Very proud to have played for an unbelievably big team. I was still playing in the champions league for Man Utd in my thirties, so that's a cause for celebration in my mind". That's the Michael Owen who should be welcomed home? Yes, I have some sympathy that he did try to get a move back to Liverpool from Madrid and things just didnt work out. But going to Man Utd and then coming out with quotes like the above is why it would be difficult to wipe the slate clean for him.