Football

ignore me

#freeKT

Klopp confirming today that only one senior player actually has Covid (Trent AA) and the rest, including home were ‘false positives’.

Don’t want to go all tin foil hat but that’s really fucking convenient during a tight fixture window when the first team has a few injuries and too many games.

...Incredible. All those positives and pending positives. And think of all the coach drivers and support staff. It was bullshit from the start. They could field a team against Shrewsbury ok but not a clear 48hrs before.

They could field a team against Shrewsbury ok but not a clear 48hrs before.

Different rules between FA and PL.

FA say that if your squad is so depleted you have to field your entire U18 squad in the FA Cup you field your entire U18 squad in the FA Cup.

PL say "ooh, someone's got a hang nail and someone else has a sniffle, we'll postpone the fixture for you".

It was the EFL, not the Premier League, who let them off the Arsenal game.

But PL does seem to be pretty much a walkover. Leicester have had their game called off in part due to players at AFCON.

I just don't understand what you think the agenda is here? They have now had the second leg of the arsenal tie moved in between two prem games causing far greater fixture congestion and fucking with premier ambitions. This hardly feels like a great result from a devious master plan...

Klopp is obviously desperate to add the league cup to his CV :)

he always said he wanted a winter break

#stillhigh

Always wanted to post that, never had the chance.

Congrats. You guys played really well and the goal was good but Arsenal were complete horse shit.

Terrible from minute 1.

The reason Leicester could go ahead with the FA cup tie against Watford on Saturday was because they could name eight (academy) players in the squad, none of whom are eligible for PL games. And, even then, the bench was only made up of seven (rather than nine) substitutes.

Of the named PL squad, Leicester are missing 16 players from a squad of 28 - Soyuncu, Evans, Justin, Fofana, Bertrand, Ricardo, Thomas, Vardy, Daka, Ihenacho, Amartey, Mendy, Ndidi, Soumare, Dewsbury-Hall and Castagne - through Covid, injury or Afcon. This leaves them with 12 players, 3 of whom are goalkeepers. Whether or not the PL is a "walkover", I'm not sure how Leicester are supposed to fulfill the fixture with Everton.

How many are covid? Injuries are unfortunate, but part of the game. AFCON is irrelevant because that is the club's choice - if you know 4/5 players are going to that you've taken a risk and now it's bitten you.

Afcon is three (Ihenacho, Ndidi and Amartey), so is not the real issue. "Injuries are unfortunate" doesn't work any more. Many injuries are related to Covid - players are playing more games over a congested period and returning sooner than they should from injury, directly because of squads depleted by Covid. I'm sure it's the same at other clubs, but players like Evans, Ricardo, etc. got (more) injured because they played when they wouldn't otherwise have done were it not for Covid.

It's all moot though, how are Leicester supposed to fulfill a fixture with 8 eligible outfield players?

I'd assume most of those academy players are under 21 though (or there are academy players under 21) so they'd still be eligible for PL games (U21s don't need to be named in the PL squad).

The thing is that later in the season clubs won't be able to postpone matches if they have injuries but at the moment you can do what Everton did and just make up a few injuries and have a game called off. If injuries and international call-ups don't normally count then I don't really think they should apply now.

Injuries 'with' covid, not 'of' covid ;)
I was being slightly provocative, but we had to play Liverpool with kids during one of the covid outbreaks. I'm not saying this is Leicester's case, but some clubs do seem to be gaming the situation a bit in using covid as an excuse to overcome injuries/absences.
There should be very clear rules in place for this including independently overseen testing, naming of players affected and specific guidelines for when a match can be postponed. It's not like this situation is a surprise.

I think 3 or 4 of them were under 21 (Alves is 16). It still wouldn't give us enough for a PL matchday squad, unless we were expected to field academy players who haven't trained with the senior squad. Of course, that might be a reasonable thing to do for all clubs, but my point was that tomorrow's game hasn't been postponed because Leicester are playing the system or because of Afcon. We genuinely don't have enough players who can play.

we had to play Liverpool with kids during one of the covid outbreaks

That was an FA cup game, not PL, wasn't it? Same with us on Saturday (to a lesser extent, and we were playing Watford!).

I would agree with everything else you say, and Liverpool's convenient false positives are fucking fishy!

It's all dodgy as fuck. We've had two matches called off with less than two hours notice, one match that wasn't initially postponed but was after Everton found some new "injuries" overnight and another away match rearranged with less than two weeks notice after Liverpool's "false positives".

Obviously fans that have lost out on travelling, train tickets, flights, hotels, etc are just told sorry but that's your problem.

We did have 5 players with actual covid (as opposed to kopite kovid) though.

Bitter sweet to see Kaide Gordon score for Liverpool at the weekend. He was such a bright player in our academy and I watched him excel at u21 level as a scrawny 16 year-old. It was really annoying losing him for a measly amount to the Kopites as we couldn't get a decent fee for him when he hadn't signed a pro-contract with us, but I wish him well with his career and hope he goes on to fulfil his potential.

However, Klopp's COVID must've affected his memory... This is a quote from him after the match:

"It was a brilliant goal from Kaide Gordon. He was really calm and composed. His main strength is his finishing.
"All credit to our Academy that they produce these boys but we had no other line-up available to us."

All credit to Liverpool's academy for signing players for minimal fees and then claiming them as products of their own academy less than 12 months later? Fuck off...

Nice to see VAR finding a way to cancel a goal against utd however they can. Bent fuckers.

can't believe gerrard hasn't brought in (PEN.) from the rangers II in the january window

Wonderif the false positives were caused by all those players who are asthmatic in the Liverpool FC squad?