Yeah, Boris has been by far the worst of the three horsemen who keep convening to update the nation at press conferences. But really he’s just the salesman for something like this.
Further update. UEFA are holding a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the future of all their European competitions this season. Also under discussion would be the Euros this summer, and there are thoughts this could be postponed until next year in order to allow domestic leagues the time to complete their schedules.
Call it off. It is an important sport to all of us, sure. But it's only a sport. As Pearson says, the only reason to carry on is for corporate contracts and frankly they can stuff themselves. No point restarting while there is any chance of it resurfacing.
Combining this season and next season and playing each team 4 times is the best solution I have seen. Gives maximum flexibility and advantage based on current league positions. The PL should send the avoided parachute payments to the EFL for distribution amongst the top clubs in the Championship.
Decide all remaining games once the worst has cleared, in a traditional, mediaeval style game of mob football. Each team defends a parish and the first to bring the sheep's bladder to their opponent's steeple wins the title. Finally Deeney becomes world class.
I was thinking of something similar, but only the top two go up because they are well clear in the Championship. None go down this season, but 4 go down over the next two seasons, just to finally get the numbers back down to 20 clubs. I think that's the best solution if this season is frozen at the point it is at now.
The trouble with that is there would be a backlog of 9/10 games to carry over to next season. This would mean 2 games a week for 9 or 10 weeks during next season. It's a lot to fit in. I really think the football authorities will do all they can to get games done. This particular suspension is because players and coaches have been infected. In 3 or 4 weeks, it could be a lot worse for members of the public to gather in large stadiums. This could mean playing behind closed doors of course, but players are also members of the public. The virus has no distinction between fans and players. This could blow over quickly, once the warmer weather arrives, or it could remain for a while until a vaccine has been created. I'd say at this time it's unlikely the season would end in a frozen state, but it is still a real possibility. We'll know more in early April at how this is going to play out, but if UEFA postpone the Euro until 2021 it will give clubs more time to get their domestic leagues completed. 9/10 games is pitched quite badly. It's not like half a season, but it's not a small enough number to get the season done quickly in a catch up scenario.
Yes....add Leeds and West Brom to the Premier League next season and relegate no one. Over the next two seasons 4 go down and 3 go up. This would get the numbers back in line at 20, although you will have an odd numbers of clubs for one season.
Without a vaccine the coronavirus epidemic will b with us for a long time unless the as yet unproven herd immunity kicks in. There isnt an antibody test yet and I havent seen any evidence of immunity at this stage, let's pray there is soon. Some say 60% of the population need to be infected to get herd immunity. I've also heard 85%. 60% is 39 million people, of those at least 4 million would need hospital treatment and tragically between 300,000 and 2 million of those people would die. This isn't something that is just gonna go away. It might abate in the summer but if it does it will most likely be back with a vengeance in winter. Unfortunately without a miracle we are looking at a very serious medium to long term epidemic. Football is irrelevant right now. All the survivors will know people who died. Boris Johnson is basically saying 'let them eat Coronavirus!'
If the theory is that by promoting Leeds and West Brom, the authorities will avoid a legal challenge, I suspect that they will just shift it on to the teams in the play off positions and just below, one of whom will have had their chance of a shot at 120 million taken away. It will never end.
As someone said earlier, can’t remember if it was on here, no club from the EFL can mount a legal challenge I don’t think - certainly not one they would be likely to win, as the PL invites the top two from the Championship to join the PL. The PL aren’t duty bound to invite them. I don’t know the above for certain however.
I’d be surprised if we heard anymore from clubs now about specific individuals contracting the virus. We may get numbers possibly but given the league is suspended, there’s no real public interest in knowing the names.
10 basic spelling mistakes in this. Great proofreading BBC. Watford manager Nigel Pearson says the UK governement has shown a 'lack of leadership' in responswe to the coronavrius pandemic. He was specifcally referring to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's press conference on Thursday. Perason said: "I was totally underwhelmed by the lack of leadership and clear message in terms of what was said in that press conference." "I think it's imoportant that we are proactive and that hoopefully the Premier League will make stong decison based on what is right for everybody. "We've told all the players and trainig ground staff to stay at home, as a precaution."
What I'm worried about is the EPL might allow teams with games in hand to play those matches behind closed doors before freezing the season, to ensure parity across the board. Therefore if Villa beat Sheff Utd, we'll be in the bottom three. This would be extremely unfair it they did something like this. You could say all teams would have played 29 games, but those final games in hand would have extra significance. Villa knowing if they win they stay up, when ordinarily that would not have been the case. No one has suggested this by the way, it's just a thought I have, but I could see it having some merit it they decide to balance the look of the league table. If they were to impose relegation's on clubs before the end of the season, I'm sure the footballing authorities would prefer small clubs like Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford to go down, as the cries of "unfair" wouldn't be as loud if a bigger club like Villa went down.
I just can’t see them doing it. Of course all options would be open but the financial ramifications would be huge and relegating 3 clubs before 38 games are played would be unthinkable - the PL would be opening themselves up to huge lawsuits as the clubs wouldn’t be ‘relegated’ and would effectively be being expelled through no wrongdoing.