Premier League 2020/21 (Part 1)

He has basically just told the squad that he does not think they are good enough. Bit of a plonker.

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We knew that already.

£3m a year as England manager, but old habits die hard, and he wanted to “supplement” his income.

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Coming back to this I’m not sure that mass vaccination of PL footballers and support personnel would allow the PL to cut down on testing to any meaningful degree, would it?

I would have thought that it would need to continue in order to be responsible for the wider community, particularly with ongoing breaches of protocol and government coronavirus rules by individuals.

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Michael Oliver has admitted he made a mistake for not sending Pickford off for his “challenge” on VVD:

But Oliver appeared particularly candid when discussing VAR.

The 35-year-old admitted it was a mistake not to send off Jordan Pickford for the goalkeeper’s injury-inflicting collision with Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk in last October’s Merseyside derby.

Oliver admitted he got distracted by checking for offside — and whether he should award a penalty — rather than considering whether or not he should send off Pickford.

“We have all, myself included, not thought about the (Pickford) challenge as much as we should have done,” he told the Mail on Sunday. “We could still have given offside and sent Pickford off. What I was surprised about, looking at it afterwards, was that nothing was expected on-field in terms of a red card. None of the players were asking for that.

“We got sucked too much into going step by step as opposed to thinking of the bigger process, which was considering the challenge as well and not just the fact it can’t be a penalty. We should have restarted with the offside, as we did, but with a different punishment for Jordan Pickford.”

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Oliver is a really good referee who made a mistake, but an understandable one. And he’s actually admitted to it which is a novelty for an English referee.

David Coote, who was on Var, is a shitshow. He has absolutely no business officiating in the Premier league. His performance at Anfield vs Burnley last season was a sign of things to come. Total incompetence.

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I wonder if it’s Oliver giving us a hint, have to say I’ve never had an issue with any of the games he did previously and generally thought him to be one of the better ones.

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Sunday - Aston Villa v Everton 12:00 (Originally Saturday)

A bit puzzled. If Villa isn’t capable of playing on Wednesday, how will they be able to play after four days?

Isn’t it supposed to be 14 days isolation from a positive test so it’s weird they are down to play for Sunday.

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It feels inevitable they’ll have to pause it. I reckon at most they can pause two weeks without affecting the Euros, and they’ll probably have to scrap the FA cup.

Since two weeks seems like it wouldn’t really help much, I’m not confident that the season gets completed.

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If the league is disrupted, I’m afraid it’s going to be canceled. There’s simply no wriggle room.

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European rugby has been suspended.

Which football association will be the first to call for similar action, I wonder? :thinking:

Edit: lower leagues in Scotland also put on hold:

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All leagues below the conference north/south are discussing null and void apparently.

I reckon they will plow on, doesn’t seem to be hitting Italy or Germany hard and Spain now seems more to do with adverse weather than Covid anymore.

Almost like their players don’t act like bellends.

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Instant season ban for players who fail to adhere to protocols. It’s the only way they’ll learn. If not, they will end up ruining it for everyone else.

Posts this article in the corona thread, but relevant here.

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Should have been done so from the beginning of the season.

I think Italy has some Corona cases among the players but the situation in UK is atrocious.

The 36 cases this week is a jarring rate of infection - not clear how many are players, but if you consider there are really about ~400 PL first team players, the rate of infection suggests something is seriously wrong.

Haven’t they upped the testing to twice weekly now? So it’s going to increase positives anyway?

Testing twice a week should not produce that many more positives though. No way that that explains the past two weeks numbers.