***Official*** English Football Season 2020-21

[GIMH]

Not sure how many STs we sold this season. Usually it's around 4k so 2k seems like a good guess. And that's the Tier 2 capacity, reportedly

*crosses everything*

 

[Furball]

Rumours of limited numbers of fans allowed in if your area is Tier 1 and 2 once this lockdown ends.

The numbers here on God's own peninsula are pretty good. We shouldn't have been lumped in with Liverpool anyway but if the above is true then us not being T3 is a hill I am prepared to die on.

A blanket ban on fans was always an utter nonsense.

One of the lower league teams in Scotland had a good Twitter thread on it - it was ok for fans to book a table in the social club to have a meal, as long as they stuck to household restrictions and sit indoors to eat it, it was ok for fans to sit outside the social club and have some socially distant pints, but they were prevented from standing on the terrace outside to watch their team play football.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Presumably there will have to be some sort of percentage or individually tailored numbers. Old Trafford is still empty with 4,000 but Harrogate is practically full.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

So it’s 4,000 or 50%, whichever is lower.

 

[Pothas]

Still no chance of me making a game but still it is progress.

 

[JOJOXI]

Klopp's being a ****. Nobody forces him to pick the same players in every game. It's like if the New York Yankees insisted on only having one pitcher on the roster, then wouldn't stop ****ing moaning about him having to play several games a week.

I do think he has half a point personally. There are 5 games next week involving sides who played on Wednesday and Thursday - sometimes less if those sides are up against each other. With every game televised and no fans surely you can ensure the first 3 games (Friday night and Saturday lunchtime/3pm don't involve one of those 5 teams.) However, I'm not so sure about the 5 subs rule - it clearly benefits the clubs with bigger squads and whilst I think the scheduling could be better (my first point), you can give the odd rest to players especially if you have the likes of Minamino and Origi on the bench - add in Jota or Firmino once Salah is back too. Also fear if you go to 5 subs you may not get back to 3 subs post covid.

 

[Uppercut]

I do think he has half a point personally. There are 5 games next week involving sides who played on Wednesday and Thursday - sometimes less if those sides are up against each other. With every game televised and no fans surely you can ensure the first 3 games (Friday night and Saturday lunchtime/3pm don't involve one of those 5 teams.) However, I'm not so sure about the 5 subs rule - it clearly benefits the clubs with bigger squads and whilst I think the scheduling could be better (my first point), you can give the odd rest to players especially if you have the likes of Minamino and Origi on the bench - add in Jota or Firmino once Salah is back too. Also fear if you go to 5 subs you may not get back to 3 subs post covid.

Liverpool play midweek next week too though. There’s no way to fix it so you play 2 games a week without any 3-day turnarounds.

5 subs just transparently favours big clubs, so they’ll probably do it eventually.

 

[JOJOXI]

Liverpool play midweek next week too though. There’s no way to fix it so you play 2 games a week without any 3-day turnarounds.

5 subs just transparently favours big clubs, so they’ll probably do it eventually.

Thanks for the correction - I've just checked and yeah a rare occasion of CL games in back to back weeks let alone 3 weeks in a row although what I have seen is him complaining about 12.30 Saturday games rather than specifically Saturday but yep it seems pretty unavoidable looking at their fixture list now given they have Ajax on Tuesday 1st December.

And if I'm not mistaken it has to be voted through so it will only be done if enough managers support it - I've heard Moyes now does - I'd imagine a few others may have changed their minds if hit by lots of injuries. But its not like seasons aren't busy normally so how do you justify a return back to 3 subs once you go to 5 especially as you say 5 subs benefitting the bigger clubs. Evidence of how busy it will be - in between club football you have 14 World Cup qualifiers in South America between March 2021 and March 2022 combined with a Copa America this summer. That could be as many as 22 games plus league football plus cups and potentially European football for some South American players (Aguero/Jesus/Firmino/Allisson/Ederson/Thiago Silva etc). Then you haven't had 2nd Round (Group Stage) or 3rd round of African World Cup qualifying yet whilst European World Cup qualifying hasn't started at all yet. Fitting that all in over the next couple seasons will lead to a calendar not that much less congested then this year.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

There’s doubt over whether some clubs will allow fans in even when permitted to do so. For many the numbers allowed will be predominantly, or wholly, season ticket holders which will mean little or no match day revenue. This will make the cost of opening up the stadium and policing it prohibitive.

 

[GIMH]

I don't think we'd survive the PR backlash if we could open and didn't

 

[sledger]

Imagine for clubs with smaller grounds it'll be worth it

The match day costs of opening up a 50,000 seater stadium or whatever are massive though

Could conceivably be false economy to start letting crowds in if you're only allowed to admit less than 10% capacity

 

[andruid]

Arsenal need Ozil.

Think we should switch from Lampard is over-rated to Arteta is over-rated.

Why not both?

 

[GIMH]

Imagine for clubs with smaller grounds it'll be worth it

The match day costs of opening up a 50,000 seater stadium or whatever are massive though

Could conceivably be false economy to start letting crowds in if you're only allowed to admit less than 10% capacity

Hopefully it leads to all clubs with big stadia going bust.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Hopefully it leads to all clubs with big stadia going bust.

Words last forever.

 

[GIMH]

It's okay I class big as 55,018 and above.

 

[duffer]

#Ozil in

Can't be worse than Nicolas Poopoo. Has about 1000 times the talent

 

[Furball]

Imagine for clubs with smaller grounds it'll be worth it

The match day costs of opening up a 50,000 seater stadium or whatever are massive though

Could conceivably be false economy to start letting crowds in if you're only allowed to admit less than 10% capacity

Regardless of the economics I'd be amazed if Rangers didn't open up once allowed. I won't be alone in being absolutely desperate to be able to go back to games.

 

[Furball]

Why not both?

Arsenal were an absolute mess when Arteta took over. He needs patience, he obviously had things going in the right direction at the end of last season. There's a couple of question marks over his recruitment (Willian ffs) but Arsenal are definitely more solid under him.

 

[Uppercut]

Arsenal were an absolute mess when Arteta took over. He needs patience, he obviously had things going in the right direction at the end of last season. There's a couple of question marks over his recruitment (Willian ffs) but Arsenal are definitely more solid under him.

When he took over I thought that their squad was in such bad shape that he'd probably need to ride out some very poor results over the next season or two if he was going to be a long-term success. So I expected something like this, but I still find myself doubting him. Their attack is absolutely tragic and only getting worse.

 

[duffer]

Arsenal were an absolute mess when Arteta took over. He needs patience, he obviously had things going in the right direction at the end of last season. There's a couple of question marks over his recruitment (Willian ffs) but Arsenal are definitely more solid under him.

Our recruitment under Sanllehi was corrupt as **** and will cripple our rebuild for a few seasons. I hope I'm wrong but Edu doesn't seem much different, he is close to a lot of super agents and a couple of the signings he pushed for are ridiculously suspicious too.