As I understand things, if there is a single verified case of Covid, the request passes the test and can't be refused. This is the statement:

"With Arsenal having fewer than the required number of players available for the match (13 outfield players and one goalkeeper), the board accepted the club's application. The decision is a result of a combination of COVID-19, existing and recent injuries and players on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations."

Interestingly, they added this:
"...all clubs are able to apply for a postponement if COVID-19 infections are a factor in their request"

Aren’t you in the Dagenham area? If you use a hairdresser in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire he or she must be a genius hair stylist. Unless of course you only go there to repeatedly see where Beverley Allitt committed her four murders, knowing how interested you are in serial killers. She did her crimes in Grantham, Lincolnshire. So it’s presumably convenient for you to visit Grantham on the way to Scunthorpe.

Fair point - we are stretched, but that's not a unique state at this point of the season. We used our single Covid case to our advantage so we shouldn't be surprised at the reaction.

Yeah, but at the same time Leicester only had two covid cases. And with a lot of the other postponed games we have no idea how many cases there actually was, because there is no transparency and the reason is stated in vague terms such as "a number of injuries and covid cases". For all we know that could've been six injuries and just one or two cases of covid.

I've always liked Benitez and felt he and Wenger had a healthy respect for each other. Sadly, I doubt he'll ever see a top job any more. He'll make the rounds of the mid-ish table sides either in England or abroad. Maybe a national manager of a 2nd tier European side or a side in Asia or Africa.

He's not alone in that predicament. Raneiri and Mourinho are there as well. No sympathy from me for the latter. Mourinho has some sociopathic characteristics I think.

Can't disguise that another reason this particular postponement pissed me off was because I'd been looking forward to this game for 2 seasons and I had a full day of jolly-boy fun and fine dining planned around it. But as I mentioned, many will have been far more inconvenienced than me. There's always Scandanavian, Irish and Asian contingents at these sorts of games. Last time I went to the old WHL, I walked from Seven Sisters and got chatting to a number of Tott supporters; one group had flown in from Israel and another from South Africa for the match. I have Gooner friends in the USA who had intended to come over. It's that sort of game.

I don’t think you can really look at it like that. If our game with wolves took place we would have been at full strength they would have been depleted at best and we seem to have been supporting the clubs making the postponements when they request them.

Then when we need help we can’t get it ? I mean how unfair is that.

We were missing all 3 right backs .. so what’s the suggestion ? We play a 17 year old or 18 year old who played on the Friday night and has never played with the first team? That would be beyond ludicrous and totally unfair

That's perfectly understandable. I'm really itching to get over and watch a game, but I'm going to wait until this is all well and truly over and there's no risk of games getting postponed. Sadly, that's very unlikely to be until next season at the earliest.

Fine dining when you go to White Hart Lane? Is that the three Michelin Star Cockerel Kebab takeaway in Tottenham High Road, or the two Michelin Star Lillywhite Fish and Chips takeaway in Paxton Road?

Seriously, I do agree with you. I was fed up with the game being called off as well. Tottenham without Son are an ordinary team. I reckon we’d have beaten them.

No passion either way about the NLD postponement, but if the guys who manage and coach our team felt it was necessary, then fine by me. They know more than we do. If we had played that game and taken a spanking, I imagine Arteta would also be taking a spanking now?

Injuries happen. Always have. Play the cards you're dealt. Our squad should cope. How many players are out on loan?

And why not play a youngster? That's how youth breaks into the first team. It's what other teams have had to do. Or play someone more senior out of position at RB. It's not ludicrous and it's not unfair.

It's the African absentees who are at the root of this issue; it's a factor in many of the requests for postponements. If you want to avoid the problem, don't sign African payers. Our problem has been exacerbated by Xhaka's red card; is that unfair?

The fine dining was to happen a long way from Tottenham. If you want to eat well thereabouts, take a sandwich.

Spot on about Son, Bern. He's been head & shoulders their best player in recent games. With his absence, confidence was high.

Hi DHD, Arsenal literally did what every other club in the Premier League would have done in the same circumstances. It would have been weirdly self-destructive to do otherwise. I have to say, I wasn't that keen to see us lose 3-0 or 4-0 with a swag of our first-choice players missing. And, of course, Liverpool had made a similar decision a week earlier.

On February 13th we will have played two more games in the league - Burnley at home and Wolves away - unless there are more postponements. In that same period, Tottenham will have played four games - Leicester and Chelsea away, and then Southampton and Wolves at home. That means they will have caught up on their games in hand. We are currently two points ahead.

Will be very interesting to see where we stand at that point. If we win our two games (which we should) Tottenham need nine points from those four games to go past us in the table.

G'Day McQ

Sadly you're correct; I don't disagree but it doesn't make it right. The criteria for postponement has been stretched to the limit. Seems we asked for consideration of previous Covid tests to be taken into account saying they caused additional strain on the squad. This beefed up the case of the single instance of Covid.

But there were other routes open to us. We used the excuse of having one single positive Covid test to justify a postponement but we'd just shipped out Balogan and AMN in the previous couple of days. Both could've played on Sunday. More to the point, AMN is a very experienced RB so it's a bit rich to quote injuries in that position as justification.

Mari is offski in the next day or two - and btw, why couldn't he have played as an emergency RB? We're now 3 players down through loan deals and one more because of a red card. 4 more are in Africa. Whose fault is it that our squad is so depleted?

I suppose you can say that we deserve credit for making enough of a case for postponement, but it does seem a bit smart-arsey and over-egged. If players don't recover, can you see us asking for the Liverpool game to be postponed? I can. All it would take is another positive test....

Alex Song. Now I don't feel as bad as I did for him when he got booed.

https://www.facebook.com/566760030037879/posts/5381489598564874/?sfnsn=mo

Agreed, albeit I do believe Liverpool did have players to play and they fudged up the 'false positives' excuse - as I suspect we could have wheeled out a few walking wounded if we were made to play.

As from next year the rules need to be changed to covid related absences only

Mari has gone to Udinese. We must see some incomings this window. Feels like we've but a lot of stock in the Arthur and Vlahovic deals, neither of which currently fill me with confidence that they'll go ahead

Hi Haz
Hopefully you are right in that we should win those 2 games but Wolves are in good form and its away.
Will be a tricky game but hopefully we will be near full strength for that.
No way Spurs are getting 9 points from those games.
That Leeds win yesterday was massive for us.
Stopped West ham going 5 points clear

Anti Vax loon in Arsenal top attempts to shut down vaccination centre with fake paperwork

If this *%^@ has a season ticket can we cancel it please


https://twitter.com/mohamme09073545/sta ... 64933?s=21

Wolves away will be tough. They're all but in binary scores at he moment, lots of 0-0 or 1-0 scorelines. Second meanest defence in the league I think. I can see Spurs getting a maximum of 7 points from their games - and they have harder games to come I think.

Can't count Man U or West Ham out of it. It is getting to that point now where you're celebrating every dropped point for any of those teams. I also start looking at those tougher fixtures they have as potential dropped points and get disappointed when a tough away game ends up as a win for them.

Burnley have requested their match with Watford is postponed. Lets gauge the media reaction, because after all Burnley's depleted squad is part self-inflicted by selling Chris Wood to Newcastle......

I'd not take Wolves away for granted - if they don't lose this weekend to Brentford they will have gone six League matches undefeated by the time we meet them. A dangerous side.

Definitely - when I say we should win, I don't mean it's a foregone conclusion. They're a good side, and we'll need to turn up with a good performance. If we do that, we have a very good chance of winning.

We are saved:

https://www.eurosport.co.uk/football/africa-cup-of-nations/2022/pierre-emerick-aubameyang-to-return-to-arsenal-for-further-assessment-after-post-covid-heart-issues_sto8717134/story.shtml

Could make a decent RB.

Against the three that we've shifted out?

Man Utd are tricky to gauge, because as bad as they've been, they have a pretty decent run of fixtures coming up in January and February and they have players that can win those matches for them. But they're also under pressure because they're falling behind, and have Man City, Tottenham and Liverpool in March. If they're still behind when those games come up they run the risk of slipping further.

Spurs are sore because their application, in a different competition, was not successful.

The other talking heads have even less basis for moaning, not that that ever hindered them in the past.

I think they're sore because the postponement came barely 24 hours before the event. It will have have created an administrative nightmare that will cost them an awful lot of money.

All in all it was advantage Arsenal. Spurs game called off and a one would hope, a fresh, rested 11 to take on Liverpool in EFL Thursday.

That's the Premier League's fault for taking more than 24 hours to consider the request from us which was put in on Friday when we knew the extent of the injuries from Thursday night, we really couldn't have done it any sooner. Also a bit rich coming from Spurs who postponed their european game with Rennes only once Rennes had actually flown to London. I can bet Rennes felt that unnecessary pinch on their finances more than Spurs did with our game postponed

The thing with Man U is there is too much talent and depth there, that if they can bring together some semblance of team structure they can go on a run, and their depth will help when teams are struggling towards the end of the season.

That said, they've only kept 4 clean sheets all season and apart from Norwich and Burnley I wouldn't bet against anyone taking points off them at the moment. Nice to see their recent results getting the points their performances deserve

The aftv freakshow continues

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... r-25967813

They are the ones that brought up their misfortunates in the Conference. Why bring it up if they were not trying to portray themselves as subject to unfair treatment?

Not sure that the 24 hours is relevant? I don't see it listed in the guidelines. There are many scenarios where postponement at short notice is necessary. I don't blame the premier league for keeping the guidelines flexible. Let the people who always complain about rules and guidelines come up with something better. They will find it actually isn't quite as much a piece of cake as they might imagine.

Last minute postponements are tough on all parties, indeed. But they are not legitimate grounds for this moaning if they are compliant with guidelines. Postponement hurts both parties roughly equally financially I would imagine (so it is not really a factor in fairness). It is going ahead that would be very unfair to the depleted team. It is actually backwards thinking to imagine that it is unfair to the other team not to be given the opportunity to hammer a depleted outfit! That is why Arsenal accepted the Liverpool postponement without a murmur.

Avoiding an unfair disadvantage is not equivalent to gaining an advantage. The guidelines do not require that the playing field be exactly level. However 45 degree is going a bit far.

One side has a thousand or so day-staff to arrange, security to line up, a stadium to prepare, then they need to lay in food and drink for 60,000. The other side needs to….errr….turn up.

I would imagine.

Hi Decaf,
Basically this was meant from a competitive viewpoint only for Arsenal. Those all invloved in prepping for a match on the day should be compensated if said match is cancelled.
My apologies to Decaf. I misread.

You may have a point.
But still struggling to see why it would fall into the 'relevant' rather than 'tough luck' category.

https://twitter.com/afcamden/status/148 ... 13856?s=21

Lovely goal from Vlahovic tonight. He missed a penalty as well for the first time in his pro career. A few Arsenal fans getting carried away with his celebration being interpreted as a goodbye to the fans….hmmm