Couldn’t think…. The next part

MrsGrey

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes said:

Seem to be getting into murky territory with the postponement issue.

Arsenal requesting the NLD be postponed because of injuries, AFCON and apparently one Covid case. That’s nonsense.

But reasons why players are unavailable is not the issue really, by the rules. It's all about available numbers. And if the club can provide acceptable evidence that they are genuinely unavailable.

If they are sick ( any type of illness) or unavailable ( injured, afcon, isolating) then the fact is they can't play.
And if there aren't enough players left, it had to be postponed.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

Mrs G,

I’d understood the 13 players rule was a response to Covid specifically. I suppose that’s what I mean by it becoming murky. Do we postpone games now just because a team has a lot of injuries? I’ve never known that to ever happen pre-Covid.

I’m sorry but look at our bench against Norwich. Mostly kids and Yarmolenko. In effect we had 12-13 actual first-team players.

Fortuneseeker

Teams shouldn’t be allowed to include players who are at the ANC in their calculations for squad size. I agree with Jorderz it’s entering murky territory. I know it’s Manchester City but they have loads of players unavailable but they are still keen to play Chelsea tomorrow.

PrestonHammer

Looked at the wrong players in the above post hahaha

buffybegood

MrsGrey said:

If they are sick ( any type of illness) or unavailable ( injured, afcon, isolating) then the fact is they can't play.
And if there aren't enough players left, it had to be postponed.

If they had to field a team, they could, even if it was with u23s, u18s, whatever, and I think that's the point that is winding people up. In a normal season having injured or unavailable players would not be an reason to postpone a game, and so I think people feel that if Covid isn't the main reason for them not to be able to field as strong a team as they would like, then tough.

MrsGrey

But wasn't the rule about postponement of games in place for many seasons?
And specified numbers available and criteria for designating someone as unavailable?

It's not a new thing or a new wording?

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

I thought it was a new thing. I can’t remember games ever being postponed for injuries.

MrsGrey

Fortuneseeker said:

Teams shouldn’t be allowed to include players who are at the ANC in their calculations for squad size.

Disagree.

In a ' normal' season ( non covid) a club names 25 players.
When any players go to Afcon, those slots aren't opened up for the club to add additional players. The squad size is effectively reduced to 23 or whatever.
The club is expected to manage, including allowing for emergency GK signings.

buffybegood

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes said:

I thought it was a new thing. I can’t remember games ever being postponed for injuries.

That's my understanding, and why I feel certain clubs are taking liberties by asking for postponements when their problems aren't really Covid related.

MrsGrey

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes said:

I thought it was a new thing. I can’t remember games ever being postponed for injuries.

Maybe because they never had so many?

Current rule - 13 outfield players ( any position) Inc 1 GK. With senior experience ( so includes kids with 1 minute in a cup game at any club, eg loan at lower league side).
And it's implicit that players would have to play out of position.

You may be right, but it would be a rare situation (pre covid) that there wouldn't be enough players.

Fortuneseeker

Arsenal have 4 @ the ANC, one covid case plus a suspension plus an additional six with injury concerns not definitely out just doubtful. So their case is borderline but as Leicester used their ANC quota as part of their submission for a postponement it is believed Arsenal will also be allowed to call their match off. As a journalist said in the week when clubs sign an African player they know they may well be unavailable due to the ANC so it shouldn’t be used as an excuse. Leicester played Liverpool at Christmas with players out of position. It just needs better clarification so everyone knows where we stand David Moyes and Tuchel amongst others have voiced their concerns on the basis on which postponements are granted.

Kuchinghammer

I see football administrators are firm believers in the chaos theory...

PrestonHammer

Arsenal have let 2 go, Maitland Niles and someone else. Surely you can't moan about not having enough players when you've moved 2 on?

Lukerz

Which is when it becomes tactical. How do we know that Arsenal didn’t move players on to try & postpone a game after a busy week where they knew they had two huge away games.

Lukerz

I think it’s simple, we need some numbers.

“The Premier League has agreed Arsenal’s request to postpone their Premier League game with Tottenham following 2 confirmed COVID cases, 5 injuries to current first team players & 2 players being involved in AFCON. As a result, Arsenal are only able to select from 11 outfield players. The Premier League are satisfied with the evidence provided by Arsenal.”

That would be better. At the moment, it’s very vague.

Lukerz

So they had 17 first team players available on Thursday for the Liverpool game. 2 of those were goalkeepers. So 15 outfield players. They lost Xhaka & Soares during the game & at least one is definitely out of the game Sunday. That would leave them with 13/14 outfield players & 2 keepers. So it is borderline. We don’t know if they are expecting any other injured players back, such as Soares, Smith-Rowe, Tomiyasu & Odegaard (COVID) or have had any further COVID cases.

I am not sure if they have any other youngsters who would be classed now as first-team but I do feel the decision to loan out two players this week needs to come into it as both of those could have been included.

MrsGrey

I think it is a stretch to suppose they deliberately deprived themselves of 2 first team players for the rest of the season so they might perhaps maybe (they had no way of knowing who would get injured/test positive for Covid) be able to postpone a match, and that match just might (if the injuries + covid cases just happened to affect that game and not a different one) be a 'big' one?

Lukerz

I wouldn’t put it past them after watching the way they conduct themselves as a club on the pitch over the last few weeks. It would not have been hard to look at the calendar a week or two ago & said “that’s a tough week, semi final of a cup & NLD away from home.” By reducing their squad size to add to the players they knew they would not have because of AFCON, it would only take a couple of cases/injuries & a request would go in.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

I don’t agree they’d go that far but it will be interesting to know how injured some of the players are. A couple seemed to come off the other night with knocks. Are they really injured or will they play against Liverpool in the week?

IronHerb

Bryan Robson's Middlesbrough were deducted 3 points, which subsequently relegated them, when he applied for a postponement as he couldn't field a team. The request was denied but Boro called the game off anyway.

Lukerz

This is the manager who happily rolled an injured player back on the pitch against us to waste time? I seriously wouldn’t put anything past them.

It is in their interest to get a postponed game, sandwiched between two semi final ties, moved until potentially they get their AFCON players back.

thornburyiron

They managed to put out a full squad of U23’s against us last night, some of who, had been in their first team squads at different times.

Lukerz

Another convenient thing to do

IronHerb

On another matter. The government will decide in the next few days on whether to ban Bookmakers from being the 'main' sponsors of football teams. If agreed to do so this will start from 2023-24 season.
Our sponsorship deal with Betway is worth around £10m a year, which is well behind the top six but better than the rest, and expires in 2025.
Maybe this is an opportunity to seek out a more lucrative sponsorship deal.

Slacker

IronHerb said:

On another matter. The government will decide in the next few days on whether to ban Bookmakers from being the 'main' sponsors of football teams. If agreed to do so this will start from 2023-24 season.
Our sponsorship deal with Betway is worth around £10m a year, which is well behind the top six but better than the rest, and expires in 2025.
Maybe this is an opportunity to seek out a more lucrative sponsorship deal.

Or a more morally acceptable one.

ScotHammer

…….and how many of those “injured” players will return in the next game. Can hear it now - “we just felt Tottenham was just one game too early to risk them”. All very dubious.

Fortuneseeker

They have a Carabao Cup Semi Final second leg this week, let’s see what their line up looks like! 🤔

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

It does look to be a new rule - 'if COVID-19 infections are a factor in their request'.

This to me is abusing that. They have one infection as far as we know. So if we had 17 injuries but no Covid cases, would they not postpone it? We'd presumably have to play the U23s?

ASLEFshrugged

Fortuneseeker said:

They have a Carabao Cup Semi Final second leg this week, let’s see what their line up looks like! 🤔

Xhaka will be absent, his red card ban will apply on Thursday rather than tomorrow against Spurs.

Fortuneseeker

What happens if they turn out to be false positives like Liverpool’s were the other week?