Everton (A) Pre-match Thread - POSTPONED

[Corky]

Oh, by the way, when TalkSport were discussing Man United affecting the integrity of the league last May they named this team against us- 

 

De Gea

 

Williams

Bailly

Tuanzebe

Telles

 

Van De Beek

Matic

 

Diallo

Mata

Elanga

 

Greenwood

 

With a bench including Lindelof, Pogba, Cavani, Rashford, Fernandes, Shaw, Henderson, Wan-Bissaka and McTominay.

 

But clearly us having a squad of 17 including 7 players 20 and under means the game absolutely has to go ahead. Not really bothered about "integrity" when teams in the bottom half might be affected. Quelle surprise.

 

 

[KingsX]

3 hours ago, Raw Dykes said:

Are you sure that the final request was accepted because of Covid cases specifically, and not just because their absence took our number of available senior players below the threshold?

 

Here's the rule:

"Premier League Rules and factors taken into account by the Board

Premier League rules provide a framework and discretion to the Board to assess whether a postponement application should be accepted.

As the guidance shows, the Board will consider the following principal factors when making a decision:

1) The impact of COVID-19 infections on a club’s squad, as well as injuries, illness and those isolating, and the number of players available on the squad list and any Under-21 players with appropriate experience. Where a club cannot field 13 outfield players and a goalkeeper either from its squad list or its appropriately experienced Under-21 players, the match will be postponed.
2) The status of any COVID-19 outbreak within a club, including the number of individuals affected, the sequence and source of infections and their proximity to the match in question.
3) A club’s ability to safely prepare its players in the lead-up to a match.
4) Medical advice as to whether there is any unacceptable risk to the health and safety of players and staff by playing the match.
5) Any advice from UK Health Security Agency and other public bodies.
6) Any other exceptional circumstances.

The Board has applied these factors in recent postponements, with examples including:

- Where a club has been unable to field 13 outfield players and a goalkeeper for a match due to COVID-19 infections, injuries, illness and/or those isolating."

 

Nowhere does it say that only Covid cases count as absentees, and why should it? Let's say one club has only 4 senior outfield players available, but no Covid cases, and another has their best 12 players available, but has one Covid case and 9 injuries. How would it be fair to force the former to play and let the latter postpone?

 

The point of the rule is to prevent a situation where club A has to play a full-strength club B, while club C gets to play club B's kids team. Why should it matter if this happens due to Covid or injuries or any other reason? It's also not what the fans pay to watch. The rule may have been brought in because Covid has drastically added to the number of absent players, but that doesn't mean that absentees will only be considered such if they have Covid. Besides, injuries can be a result of Covid cases forcing a club to overplay the same few players in a congested fixture list.

 

Have we even got any Covid cases? I don't think it makes any difference whether a player is out due to having Covid or a hamstring injury. The end result is the same - the player can't play.

 

What makes you so sure that we wouldn't get a game postponed if we had no Covid cases? We've got 8 senior outfield players available.

 

one explanation of the PL board's flexibility in handling these situations:

 

There is no threshold of positive tests that must be reached for a game to be postponed. Instead, the Premier League weighs up each individual situation before making a call.

A team could return six positive tests, for example, only for the match to proceed as planned because the results are spread among players and backroom staff. But another side could confirm three COVID-19 cases, all of which impact first-team goalkeepers, leading to a postponement.

If the Premier League board, based on the evidence they had seen, believed that there was not enough to suggest a postponement is necessary, then the match would go ahead.

Should the fixture remain unfulfilled for any reason, the Premier League board would meet to decide the outcome of that game.

 

https://theathletic.com/news/premier-league-postpone-leicester-vs-everton-due-to-player-availability/

[SuperMike]

Nah

.......not gonna apologise.

[st albans fox]

1 hour ago, NaijaFox said:

That the 13-player availability rule was applied when there were a suffuse of Covid cases should not mean it is only applicable to Covid cases.

Why wasn't it applied to southampton at old trafford last season ??

 

the rule has been introduced precisely because of covid and isolation. 

 

if there was no pandemic, we wouldn't have much chance whatsoever of getting games postponed because we have an injury crisis.  can you give me a precedent ??

[NaijaFox]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

Why wasn't it applied to southampton at old trafford last season ??

 

the rule has been introduced precisely because of covid and isolation. 

 

if there was no pandemic, we wouldn't have much chance whatsoever of getting games postponed because we have an injury crisis.  can you give me a precedent ??

By the same measure, can you us a precedent where a team had only 8 out of its 25 registered PL first-team outfielders available (for whatever reason) and the PL game still proceeded?

 

You keep citing Southampton at Old Trafford last season, but even though they had many players out, they still met the threshold of up to 13 of their 25 first-team players available (also unsure if the Saints requested a postponement).

 

Here's their available squad for the game:

 

Goalkeepers: Alex McCarthy, Fraser Forster, Harry Lewis.

Defenders: Ryan Bertrand, Jack Stephens, Jan Bednarek, Kayne Ramsay, Allan Tchapchet.

Midfielders: James Ward-Prowse, Stuart Armstrong, Moussa Djenepo, Nathan Redmond, Alex Janketwitz, Caleb Watts, Kegs Chauke, Will Ferry.

Forwards: Che Adams, Danny Ings, Dan N'Lundulu, Ryan Finnigan.

Edited 10 January 2022 by NaijaFox

[Matt]

9 hours ago, rachhere said:

I am not sure why Everton fans/Talksport blokes are getting annoyed at us, when the real issue here is that the Premier League were the ones who wanted to reschedule for this early January date, even though it was very apparent that this was going to happen. 

TBF we cancelled the Tottenham and Everton game because of Covid not injuries as I mused? Correct?

 

So to reschedule the game for this early, players should have been over it by then, no?

 

Or were they cancelled due to injuries?

[Ian Nacho]

I pray we get the darts music as the goal music.

[fox_up_north]

We must start a campaign. 

"But the darts..." has to be the statement of the day. 

 

Sorry your terrible transfer policy and fully fit squad has got you down in 15th while our makeshift defence kept a clean sheet against your rivals. 

 

[Wymsey]

2 hours ago, SuperMike said:

Nah

.......not gonna apologise.

[Lesta2014]

36 minutes ago, Matt said:

TBF we cancelled the Tottenham and Everton game because of Covid not injuries as I mused? Correct?

 

So to reschedule the game for this early, players should have been over it by then, no?

 

Or were they cancelled due to injuries?

Combination of the two I think? 

[st albans fox]

59 minutes ago, NaijaFox said:

By the same measure, can you us a precedent where a team had only 8 out of its 25 registered PL first-team outfielders available (for whatever reason) and the PL game still proceeded?

 

You keep citing Southampton at Old Trafford last season, but even though they had many players out, they still met the threshold of up to 13 of their 25 first-team players available (also unsure if the Saints requested a postponement).

 

Here's their available squad for the game:

 

Goalkeepers: Alex McCarthy, Fraser Forster, Harry Lewis.

Defenders: Ryan Bertrand, Jack Stephens, Jan Bednarek, Kayne Ramsay, Allan Tchapchet.

Midfielders: James Ward-Prowse, Stuart Armstrong, Moussa Djenepo, Nathan Redmond, Alex Janketwitz, Caleb Watts, Kegs Chauke, Will Ferry.

Forwards: Che Adams, Danny Ings, Dan N'Lundulu, Ryan Finnigan.

So confused by your post - you’ve argued with me by agreeing with me ???

the seven players i’ve marked in bold were kids under 20 with no first team experience (thanks for saving me the trouble of listing them!)

goalkeepers don’t count as outfield players ! 

 

they had ten first team squad out field players available. And yes, they did request a postponement.

Edited 10 January 2022 by st albans fox

[Fox forever]

The 13 plus keeper law only came in in December when PL agreed to carry on after some games were cancelled during this current wave. Before that you could not cancel a game as Middlesbrough found out in 1997. ( I do suspect however if we wanted to cancel Cardiff game after accident PL would have agreed)

[rachhere]

49 minutes ago, Matt said:

TBF we cancelled the Tottenham and Everton game because of Covid not injuries as I mused? Correct?

 

So to reschedule the game for this early, players should have been over it by then, no?

 

Or were they cancelled due to injuries?

It's not just that though - we knew we had a number of ongoing injuries plus the players going to AFCON. At the point at which they announced the new date, we anticipated it would need to be cancelled. 

[Matt]

7 minutes ago, rachhere said:

It's not just that though - we knew we had a number of ongoing injuries plus the players going to AFCON. At the point at which they announced the new date, we anticipated it would need to be cancelled. 

Listen I don't know the rulebook but all I read until recently was Covid postponing games (This was the understanding as far as I and I dare say many people knew at the point of the Tottenham/Everton cancellations), it was very much injuries were part and parcel of the game, get on with it opinions - that seemed to be the case up until literally the last couple of weeks where there seems to be shift in terms of what can be cancelled.

 

12 minutes ago, Fox forever said:

The 13 plus keeper law only came in in December when PL agreed to carry on after some games were cancelled during this current wave. Before that you could not cancel a game as Middlesbrough found out in 1997. ( I do suspect however if we wanted to cancel Cardiff game after accident PL would have agreed)

This sounds about right although only seems to have emerged a week or two ago.

[Gamble92]

22 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

Whip-round in the Matty James recovery wing?

 

 

I could sympathise with anyone that this kind of thing was happening to a few weeks ago but booking flights and hotels knowing what the current situation is like is just moronic. 

[oxtonfox]

22 hours ago, SuperMike said:

We have missing:

5 fullbacks (Ricardo, Castagne, JJ,                              Bertram and Thomas)

4 centrebacks (Soyuncu, Evans,                                       Fofana and Amartey)

4 Midfielders (Soumare, Ndidi,                                        Mendy and KDH)

3 strikers ie ALL 3 (Vardy, Iheanacho,                             Daka)

So sorry Everton fans -   wTF? Its not like we're just down one cross-dressing centre forward.

should have completed the song in the style of 12 days of No Chrimbo….

 

2 goalkeepers with no gloves

and a striker in the Royal Infirmary! 

[MarriedaLeicesterGirl]

4 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

I could sympathise with anyone that this kind of thing was happening to a few weeks ago but booking flights and hotels knowing what the current situation is like is just moronic. 

Especially given the fact the new date was rearranged on Dec. 31. Everton even asked for Boxing Day to be rearranged. Now is a stupid time to be planning family activities around football involving hotels/flights.

[NaijaFox]

2 hours ago, st albans fox said:

So confused by your post - you’ve argued with me by agreeing with me ???

the seven players i’ve marked in bold were kids under 20 with no first team experience (thanks for saving me the trouble of listing them!)

goalkeepers don’t count as outfield players ! 

 

they had ten first team squad out field players available. And yes, they did request a postponement.

They don't need more than ten.... 

 

Seriously, though, we are speaking about CURRENT rules (which stipulates 13 senior players plus a GK). Rules evolve from experience, and you cannot go back in time to challenge CURRENT rules, any more than you can argue (for instance) that the CURRENT 3-sub limit in PL games should be invalidated on account of the PL allowing 5 subs during last season's Restart.

 

Meanwhile, I have checked several sources, and there is NO report that the Saints sought a postponement of the Old Trafford game. Even their Gaffer in his recent comments did not claim they did. They merely complain that their myriad injuries compelled them to bring too many academy players into their first-team last season and to enlarge their squad more than usual this season. 

 

Edited 10 January 2022 by NaijaFox

[Koke]

At some point we'll end up playing about 7 games in 14 days, especially if we go far in the FÅ Cup and Europe. 

[Koke]

[st albans fox]

15 minutes ago, NaijaFox said:

They don't need more than ten.... 

 

Seriously, though, we are speaking about CURRENT rules (which stipulates 13 senior players plus a GK). Rules evolve from experience, and you cannot go back in time to challenge CURRENT rules, any more than you can argue (for instance) that the CURRENT 3-sub limit in PL games should be invalidated on account of the PL allowing 5 subs during last season's Restart.

 

Meanwhile, I have checked several sources, and there is NO report that the Saints sought a postponement of the Old Trafford game. Even their Gaffer in his recent comments did not claim they did. They merely complain that their myriad injuries compelled them to bring too many academy players into their first-team last season and to enlarge their squad more than usual this season. 

 

And no one can say for certain if those CURRENT rules require a covid element. My interpretation is that they do. Others think differently.

[NaijaFox]

4 hours ago, st albans fox said:

And no one can say for certain if those CURRENT rules require a covid element. My interpretation is that they do. Others think differently.

No problem. We can agree to disagree. Cheers.

Edited 11 January 2022 by NaijaFox

[Raw Dykes]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

And no one can say for certain if those CURRENT rules require a covid element. My interpretation is that they do. Others think differently.

I can say for certain. Injuries are just as valid as Covid or anything else as a reason for enough senior players being missing to warrant postponing a game. 100%. 

[urban.spaceman]

Lol

 

 

[urban.spaceman]