Who will be the winners of this situation?

[Nicolo Barella]

Who in the club and the league in general stands to benefit the most from COVID19 and the way the league is reacting? In the club, I would say the likes of Choudhury, who will get to play a lot more than he probably would have. In the league, probably the likes of Spurs, who will be almost completely fine regarding injuries in comparison to their previous crisis. What's your opinion?

[Tielemans63]

I honestly think it'll be down to which teams are healthiest and fittest. From that perspective you'd expect Watford to suffer more than most as they've had a few confirmed cases. Our strength and conditioning department appears to be top notch so I expect us to do well.

 

 

[UniFox21]

35 minutes ago, Nicolo Barella said:

Who in the club and the league in general stands to benefit the most from COVID19 and the way the league is reacting? In the club, I would say the likes of Choudhury, who will get to play a lot more than he probably would have. In the league, probably the likes of Spurs, who will be almost completely fine regarding injuries in comparison to their previous crisis. What's your opinion?

I think players who throw in tackles may do better, with no crowd to influence the officials we may see more tackles be let go than usual. 

 

As mentioned above, the fittest teams and those who've kept on top of their fitness will be the ones to do well. If they can start fast and keep a decent tempo consistently they should do well. 

 

We've seen in the Bundesliga that set piece goals are big currently so you'd potentially think bigger teams ,e.g. Palace, may do well. But we've also seen teams who keep the ball well, Dortmund, Bayern etc are doing well too. 

 

[StriderHiryu]

8 minutes ago, Paddy. said:

I honestly think it'll be down to which teams are healthiest and fittest. From that perspective you'd expect Watford to suffer more than most as they've had a few confirmed cases. Our strength and conditioning department appears to be top notch so I expect us to do well.

 

 

Yeah I was going to say that teams with a larger nucleus of younger players will probably come out of it the best. I think that's already been seen in the Bundesliga - Leipzig have done well, and Hertha Berlin have been reignited by some of their younger players. I also think teams with "training ground" managers will do well. So Pep, Klopp and Rodgers I all expect to do well as those are the types that are on the pitch every day, working directly with players. All 3 also have great man-management skill so will keep their players motivated and excited. Teams I think might struggle could be teams like Palace. Hodgson has been superb for them, but I think without a crowd to egg them on, they might find it tough in what is essentially an extended training session to shut out teams and keep it tight for 90 minutes, whereas they are good at doing that in a real game, feeding off the emotion of a match.

 

But all that said, the entire situation is so unprecedented you can't take anything for granted!

[Tielemans63]

1 minute ago, StriderHiryu said:

Yeah I was going to say that teams with a larger nucleus of younger players will probably come out of it the best. I think that's already been seen in the Bundesliga - Leipzig have done well, and Hertha Berlin have been reignited by some of their younger players. I also think teams with "training ground" managers will do well. So Pep, Klopp and Rodgers I all expect to do well as those are the types that are on the pitch every day, working directly with players. All 3 also have great man-management skill so will keep their players motivated and excited. Teams I think might struggle could be teams like Palace. Hodgson has been superb for them, but I think without a crowd to egg them on, they might find it tough in what is essentially an extended training session to shut out teams and keep it tight for 90 minutes, whereas they are good at doing that in a real game, feeding off the emotion of a match.

 

But all that said, the entire situation is so unprecedented you can't take anything for granted!

Agree with what your saying about the age of each squad. Palace have one of the oldest sides in the division, that's great when it's a hostile crowd and you need that experience but I agree completely, without the crowd as a factor it will surely be down to energy and work rate which should favour us.

[Stadt]

Based on the Bundesliga home advantage has been eradicated. There probably won't be quite the same disparity here because most atmospheres are tepid anyway

[Fox92]

Three winners... Liverpool because they will win the league. Us and Sheffield United, if we finish what we started, because we've overachieved.

 

Whoever goes down will argue about the situation and how the league shouldn't have continued.

[Paninistickers]

The better technical teams j feel will do better. 

 

Poorer teams can get an extra x % from the crowd - Sheff Utd generally, Villa v us in the cup - but take that away and the better players should p155 all over the poorest

[OntarioFox]

Big squads and young backbones will benefit most. Given how our squad has shaped up under Puel and now Rodgers, we're in a pretty nice position to benefit.

As some others have noted, even the situation with Ricardo has James Justin chomping at the bit to fill the gap, and he's been quality from what I've seen so far.

It will be interesting to see some faces we probably didn't expect pop up in the FA Cup, given it sounds like it's due to continue. A lot of our fringe players like Amartey, Mendy and James might make an appearance, there are youth team players who I imagine also need gametime, and then of course if his loan is still valid we might see Bennett given gametime too. Same applies to all our players currently on loan, since those deals only run until June 30th.

[l444ry]

Think we'll come out well from this. Rodgers is a driven character and I can imagine he'll be far more on top of the mental aspect than other managers. 

[Stadt]

Hope Barnes carries on his form, hit his stride just before it was suspended 

[z-layrex]

8 hours ago, Paddy. said:

I honestly think it'll be down to which teams are healthiest and fittest. From that perspective you'd expect Watford to suffer more than most as they've had a few confirmed cases. Our strength and conditioning department appears to be top notch so I expect us to do well.

 

 

Watford as a town was hit so hard. It was the first ICU in the south to get really busy after Liverpool.