General Chat 2021/22

If all the teams in England (and Europe) stick together and refuse to release the players who will need to play in red list countries there is very little that can be done about it.

Maybe games can take place in neutral venues in a non red list country?

What’s peoples advice on Harvey Barnes? Dropping tonite, It’ll take a -4 to shift him. Alli the most likely replacement but he has Norwich up next

Might have to leave him if Ben White looks like dropping. Whatever about losing money on Barnes I’d be disgusted to lose 0.1 on White

Meant to be rumours of Juventus offering Ronaldo to Man City & that they are about to sign Lewandowski from Bayern.

Time will tell....

No more Saturday 12.30 kickoffs for teams who play Wednesday in Champions League.

I wonder what the players themselves feel about it. In Salah's case there were rumors that he wanted to go to the Olympics but Pool said no - stuff like that doesn't help if trying to tie someone down to new contract. I believe that Messi wanted it stated that he could be released for international games when he joined PSG.

If Brazil missed the WC in Qatar because they failed to qualify cause players weren't being released, there would be uproar etc. I get that the clubs pay the wages, but what if say they get an exemption and Salah goes to Egypt and picks up Covid, and comes back and it spreads through the team - then what? do they just play on regardless - like Arsenal had to, or do you think there would be pressure of games been postponed?

Someone said that UEFA/FIFA couldn't really do anything - in theory they could force walk-overs in CL if clubs didn't travel to a red listed country - unlike last season where they moved games to accommodate teams.

If an exemption isn't given, it will be a mess, but if it is given it will look like double standards the millionaire footballers can do what they want, whereas other sports people - like the lions team, have to quarantine, yet alone the millions of Brits that can't just travel to a red listed country.

When the euros where on everyone was in their bubble - now it's lads going home to their families, nights out etc - different setting.

There was an article recently that state that a large number of footballers haven't been vaccinated either - so a player arriving back from a red listed country and going back into the environment could bring other issues-imagine the uproar that could cause if a new Omega variant from south america was discovered in players from Liverpool. It sounds ridiculous, but then this is the Covid world.

And it's official now

Given the government keep an open dialogue with PL or so they say, they must have been told no exemptions so the PL making this move. Edit: Just read the statement - so the government said no exemption, and the PL made this move.

Fallout could be huge - if international FA's named places in squads and they don't show up, could UEFA/FIFA suspend a player from playing for their domestic team?

IF you look at the Brazilian fixture, i believe they have a game on a Friday evening and Liverpool play on the Sunday afternoon - so it was always going to be unlikely that they would make the Sunday game anyway.

A potential solution would be that the UK government could allow vaccinated players to avoid quarantine if they provide a negative test for instance...

But the definition of high risk is very subjective. There was some state that as % of people, the UK have a higher number of cases that some of the countries that are on the red list. And when do you postpone the games to - what if in 6 months time the situation is worse. Have La Liga and other countries come out and said they are releasing players? Between players needing summer breaks, leagues ending at different times, European commitments, and not forgetting the WC next year - there isn't much space in the calendar to postpone games. I know someone mention moving to a neutral venue - but what happens if the neutral venue is red listed for other nations.

But it's only for red listed countries - so for example Spurs would still have to release Son to travel half way round the world as China isn't on the red list. IMO this is really unfair on Spurs that arguably their star player is at a bigger risk of getting injured or whatever playing internationals, while Liverpool star players won't be released.

Yea but the rules for amber countries depend on your vaccination status - so for instance if your not vaccinated the rules state:

If you do not qualify under the fully vaccinated rules, on arrival in England you must:

• quarantine at home or in the place you are staying for 10 days
• take a COVID-19 test on or before day 2 and on or after day 8

So Maybe Salah is vaccinated, but there are a large number of PL players not vaccinated, so what happens in those cases?

Kane confirms he’s staying at Spurs!

August isn't Summer thought for the traditional folk 😂

Makes Zinchenko / Cancelo more of an option now.

Kane, Salah, Bruno, Lukaku, Son, KdB, - throw in Ronaldo there as another high price player will really throw the cat among the pigeons and template teams may be no more. If it does go through those who have played their WC may be at a disadvantage.

Surely Ronaldo would be kind of like kdb and play every week?