EPL Liverpool Arsenal postponed

[mooro]

Apparently Liverpool cannot get a team together to play the league cup semi final tonight...

So presumably that means that they cannot muster 14 players from their 25 man prem squad or the 14 other players (with squad numbers over 50 ) that they have already deemed to be good enough to be named in their squads across their three other ties in this competition this season.....?

So, that's 25 out of 39 players with COVID is it Jurgen??????

 

[Andy Stroud]

Kloop’s assistant, who was in charge of their last game, also tested positive.
Given the depth of Premiership squads there is no excuse for any of the games to be called off. However a precedent has already been set.

 

[mooro]

Given how happy they have been to use players beyond their prem squad in earlier rounds while maintaining that they are not devaluing the competition by playing an understrength side, then they have no excuse for calling this game off unless they all have COVID....

But, as we know, " what Jurgen wants, Jurgen gets...."

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Given the depth of Premiership squads there is no excuse for any of the games should be called off. However a precedent has already been set.

Precisely.

Amazing that most of the bottom half PL clubs let alone the really big boys have U23 squads with budgets bigger than a lot of clubs in L1/L2, that they have squad numbers right up into the seventies and eighties and that they are happy to take over the Football League Trophy to get them some game time, potentially blocking the money and prestige of a Wembley final for half of the footballing pyramid in the process, but they aren’t willing to play a couple and sit the rest on the bench for one, two games max.

Liverpool were happy to put their kids out against Villa the other year while they were at the CWC, just as they were happy to play against Villa’s kids in the FA Cup last season, but clearly this is different as they’re actually bothered now. Presumably because they know City have the title in the bag and so they fancy a shot at a domestic trophy since they’ve gotten this far.

“If we want to play, we’ll play. If we don’t, we won’t.”

 

[mooro]

Wonder how many of the kids will recover to play Shrewsbury in the fa cup on Saturday... While of course none of the senior cases will be clear to return

 

[Junior_1]

Always the Victims.

 

[mooro]

Wonder how many of the kids will recover to play Shrewsbury in the fa cup on Saturday... While of course none of the senior cases will be clear to return

Ooh, look, Liverpool managed to get a team out for Saturday's game!

Apparently, a number of their positive cases were 'false positives', according to our friend Jurgen

 

[Junior_1]

1-1000 for that to happen isn’t it?

Must be very unlucky up in scouseland.

 

[Marked Ox]

They had 4 1st teamers starting with 2 fringe players (both ex Academy players) and the rest 1st year pros/Academy players.

 

[mooro]

They had 4 1st teamers starting with 2 fringe players (both ex Academy players) and the rest 1st year pros/Academy players.

So roughly the same as they were perfectly happy to put out in each of the previous rounds of the league cup

 

[Marked Ox]

So roughly the same as they were perfectly happy to put out in each of the previous rounds of the league cup

Not roughly the same in League Cup, they had far more 1st team/squad players in the starting 11 than last weekend.

The FA Cup game for instance, their forward line started with Kaide Gordon, Max Woltman and Curtis Jones whereas in the Lg Cup it has been Minamino with either Origi or Firmino supplemented by one of Neco Williams/Harvey Blair/Kaide Gordon.

Likewise in midfield, for the FA Cup game it was Dixon-Bonner, Fabinho and Morton. In contrast the midfield for the Lg Cup games were:

Norwich: Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jones, Keita
Preston: Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jones, Morton
Leicester: Oxlade-Chamberlain, Morton, Henderson

The defence has been similar though in standard from last Saturday to the League Cup games.

 

[mooro]

Yeah, but how many first teamers were resting on Saturday?

Guess we'll find out what degree of miraculous recovery rate will have kicked in by the arsenal game.....

Poor lambs

 

[mooro]

As our cilla used to say..... surprise surprise...a full strength side appears