Time between games

[Morph]

okay, without trying to make exuses for our poor performance yesterday, but we played on wednesday, and had the earliest game of the weekend so that gave us about 60 hours recuperation time.

Now there's four prem games being played today, and I can only assume that it's due to the UEFA cup. The only problem I have with this is that there are 4 other teams who are getting the benefit of an extra days training. Now people might say it balances out, but having looked at the fxture list it doesn't.

So should there be a minimum recuperation period between matches, say a minimum of 72 hours? Also why don't we take a leaf out of the Spanish book, and play some evening matches maybe on a Saturday, not only on a monday.

Sure there are some logisitics issues and what not, but it seems drastically unfair to me that we only get a rest period of 60 hours, where the mancs get a period of over 110 hours.

I can only see that it's going to get worse next season with the rights being split between Sky and Setanta, so there will be different kick offs to suit their networks.

I don't have a problem, with Sunday or Monday fixtures, but I think early Saturday kick offs should be outlawed for any teams in European competition appart from those who played Tuesday. And more should be done to help teams who have been in Europe on a wednesday, as it seems these teams are the ones who suffer most.

[Guest]

Spot on. International football should be banned also in my opinion.

[kurtangle01]

I like the idea of Saturday evening kick offs. It could work really well for local maches like the derby or against the mancs, city etc... Playing those sort of matches on a Saturday night would make the matches more of a spectacle than they are on a Saturday morning. The fact that it would only be local matches played on a Saturday night would also mean that there wouldn't be much travelling time for away fans.

I doubt the police would allow it to happen though.

[Morph]

I justthink the FA need to do more to help protect the league, because some teams are getting an unfair advantage through this.

[Red_Polo]

Spot on. International football should be banned also in my opinion.

Yeah, club and international seasons should be completely separate IMO

I know things get complicated when you take into account the need for other continents to play their tournaments at certain times of year, but it should at least be that way within Europe.

[brikkis]

but I think early Saturday kick offs should be outlawed for any teams in European competition appart from those who played Tuesday

Totally agree with you mate. The fact we have played all of our games at lunch time since the season started has definately had an effect on our results so far.

In fact if ****ing pisses me off !!!

[MrMichael]

Morning kick offs are the devil's work and I hate them with a vengeance, can't believe all our away games this season so far have been at noon-ish. The home side has an undoubted advantage in such games, and more importantly, I cannot see how it is anything other than bad for atmosphere at the games, which in itself is often transferred onto the pitch. When was the last classic game to kick-off at that time? Never, that I can remember, they're always turgid affairs - so it isn't ultimately good for TV either.

With the exception of very specific games like Us v ManUre, which I can understand being played early on police advice, no footy games should ever kick off before 2pm IMO.

Murdoch

[Depth_Charge]

We had loads of lunchtime kick-offs last year too - with similar results to this time around. In my opinion Football isn't really a lunchtime game, and after a tough midweek game it seems we always struggle at the weekend anyway - lunchtime kick-offs just make it worse.

Having said that - we really did not deserve to lose on Saturday, never mind by 2 goals to nil. Bolton did the absolute minimum, and wouldn't you just know that something stupid would go their way - what a cock that lino was... Most annoying tho' was the fact that it looked like we could have played all day and still not have scored.

Things are definitely not going our way away from home again this season - just like last season around this time - it's a serious case of deja vu. So much for our quick start - we're not out of the running, but we're certainly giving ourselves a lot to do, and to catch up we are going to have to come away from our matches with the Chavs, the Scum and the Arse with some real points this time around otherwise we can kiss the league goodbye again...

Bah...