Football fans are hypocrites.
We all hate diving, yet turn a blind eye when we win a game through a penalty that never was. we all hate VAR until the offside decision is given in our favour. And so on.
Throughout the last couple of months of the pandemic, I have had a consistent view.
Football games should not be postponed due to “Covid and injuries”.
Every Premier League side has registered over 50 players across their A and B lists. To announce they are unable to field a starting XI and 7 subs is just laughable.
It was interesting to note that last weekend, faced with forfeiting the tie, no FA Cup game was postponed due to Covid. Every team managed to put out a side.
Then we return to the Premier League and all of a sudden Everton v Leicester City is postponed due to the visitors being unable to field and XI. It is just a joke.
Therefore I am very dissapointed that todays North London Derby game against Tottenham has been postponed.
But it is not Arsenal’s fault.
The Premier League set the tone back end of 2021 when they postponed a Tottenham game due to Covid.
Then as the festive period rolled on, games got suspended left, right and centre due to “covid and injuries”.
The Football League then postponed the first leg of Arsenal and Liverpool’s League Cup game due to “Covid, injuries and the African Cup of Nations”.
Teams should not be asking for games to be supended. That is all.
However, having seen almost every other club getting a game postponed, it is no surprise Arsenal went down this route. And you can not really blame the club.
As soon as the authorities opened the gates to postponments, it would have been unfair for them to suddenly close them.
What we need is to start next year with a clean slate. Make it clear that games will not be postponed. That teams either put out an XI or forfeit the game.
A final thought.
It is interesting to see the media turn on Arsenal this weekend, whilst they have remained fairly silent on other postponments.
Sky have led the criticism. It seems Gary Neville et al are happy to support postponments when it does not affect their TV show. As soon as a game is postponed that leads to no Sky Super Sunday, they are up in arms.
Do not just blame Arsenal. Blame Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester United, Wolves, Leciester City. The Premier League. Blame them all.
Pandora’s box was opened when Tottenham begged the Premier League to postpone their game against Brighton.
Todays game should not have been postponed. No game should have been postponed.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
Arsnal have 1 player with covid….. They should never have been allowed to postpone due to suspensions and players at afcon.
Tottenham had to closr the training groud down because the outbreak was so bad. They also got thrown out of europe!
I personally believe this should go down as a 3-0 spurs win.
Dont even get me started on the fact i paid 60 quid for a non refundable train ticket to london
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You can change all train tickets for no fee due the the pandemic so long as you do it prior to the scheduled departure mate.
There’s a book with confidence thing in place for the past 12 months.
So at least you can get another game booked up and when we get players back we can wipe the floor with them.
It would have been madness to play the game today and we just used the same loophole that everyone else has been using.
How dare spurs get High and mighty when they have two games less played than us and I didn’t see them too concerned about Rennes when they pulled the plug on that tie
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Really that the outbreak was so bad that to the extent that it affected all their players for them not to field a first 11 and 7 subs out of 50 registered players? You are highly sentimental
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Arsenal had one player with Covid
So basically the game was postponed because of their injuries suspensions and players in the African nations cup not for Covid related reasons . nothing to do with Tottenham who by the way had five players with Covid against Brighton
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As usual this is nonsense – but we know that. Tottenham had 8 COVID cases and had to shut the training ground so could not, by law, fulfill the future. Arsenal have 1 COVID case and can fulfil the fixture but have decided they don’t want to because of normal injuries, AFCON, suspensions and loans. The PL should have laughed them out of court but are very weak. Doesn’t matter which club cheated in thus blatant manner because it was going to happen but you’d expect more from Arsenal (and, it seems probable, that Liverpool did the same). Another cheats charter has been set and anyone can now postpone a game if players aren’t available. Football is sick and you are defending it by saying ‘everyone is doing it’ even when they aren’t. Following Arsenal’s lead, I think they will now
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You’re an idiot. When there is an increased chance of spreading the infection during a global pandemic, games should be called off – for people’s safety!!! When a team is crying because they have just loaned out two players, some are on international duty, some injured and one suspended…. Makes this decision ridiculous! That’s what your squad is for!!
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Could have put a team out,no?
“This lack of fair play is all the more flagrant as Tottenham confirmed by email early this afternoon that the match would be held before informing us of their intention not to play after we landed at London City airport,” Rennes said in a statement.
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You missed an important bit off the end of that report “It appears Spurs just decided that, with more and more players testing positive for COVID by the hour (the last check was apparently 20 total people including players, U23 players, and staff), there was no way in hell they were going to play this match regardless of what UEFA had to say about it.”
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Sadly you’ve missed the point – Spurs had 8 players & 9 other staff down with COVID. The government ordered the training ground to shut meaning Covid was the cause.
Arsenal have 1 case of COVID that’s it. All the other injuries & AFCON plus the laughable suspension of your liability of a player Xhaka should no way have given Arsenal a reason for this postponement. Arsenal management have decided to put 8 players out on loan including Maitland-Niles only last week. Every club knows that when they buy African international players then they better plan for them being missing from the squad every 2 years in January. Spurs got a postponement purely because COVID had ravaged the squad & staff & shut the training ground so of course this was more within the lines of responding to the direct impact of the pandemic & not bad management & unscrupulous & continually violent players such as Xhaka. Arsenal’s current loans out (Thats why pundits & everyone who isn’t an Arsenal fan knows that this is a shocking decision that gives favour once again to Arsenal:
8 X 1st Teamers:
1/
Hector Bellerin – Real Betis
2/
Lucas Torreira – Fiorentina
3/
Runar Alex Runarsson – Leuven
4/
Reiss Nelson – Feyenoord
5/
Konstantinos Mavropanos-Stuttgart
6/
Matteo Guendouzi – Marseille
7/
William Saliba – Marseille
8/
Maitland- Miles
10 X U23’s Players
Miguez Azeez – Portsmouth
Daniel Ballard – Millwall
Harry Clarke – Ross County
Jonathan Dinzeyi – Carlisle
Dejan Illiev – Sered
Tyreece John-Jules – Blackpool
Nikolaj Moller – Viktoria Koln
Jordi Osei-Tutu – Notts Forest
Matt Smith – Doncaster
Tom Smith – Welling United
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Are you saying these players are available then? All clubs loan players out, are you saying they should all come back? You are talking nonsense.
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How stupid are you? Of course you have to postpone games when teams are seriously affected by Covid.
Arsenal are not.
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9 outfield players available you prick
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Not because of Covid! Smh
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Pure bollocks!
Pre covid you would’ve had to play regardless. Now you have just ONE case and you get a postponement??
When the game is rescheduled, you should be banned from using anyone out on loan, anyone suspended and anyone in Africa???
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Spurs’ training ground was closed by the health authority. The outbreak affected 9 first team players, backroom staff and other training centre staff as well as U23 players.
There was no chance that Tottenham could continue playing.
Arsenal had 1 covid case and the rest were routine absences. So they’ve totally scammed it.
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All train tickets are refundable you melt, also support your local team if you need a £60 train then you should follow someone else
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What an utter bell end you are
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The Premier League had to follow the precedent it set in allowing AFCON and injuries to be a factor when deciding when to postpone games. Otherwise it would be accused of hypocrisy at least and favouring some clubs at the expense of others at worst. COVID is not the only factor they used to determine whether Arsenal could fulfil the fixture. Tough on Tottenham though. I fancy they might have got a result against 9 players.
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Maybe read the rule again as the statement from the league clearly states that covid is a factor in their request. 1 x player is not a a factor in the request for Arsenal. It’s a piss take but fair play to them for asking and getting it approved. To be fair though, Arsenal should take the criticism on the chin rather than trying to blame every other team that had justified cancellations as they abused the rule and got away with it. If any other team was in the same position, they would love to have done the same and got the same result. The league best be fair and offer the same to everyone else now though so that it doesn’t just single Arsenal out as beneficiary’s.
“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.
“All clubs are able to apply for a postponement if COVID-19 infections are a factor in their request.“
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What a stupid report, two completely different situations, Arsenal have 1 Covid case? Tottenham had to close their training ground and had 9 Covid cases, huge difference but don’t expect an Arsenal fan to be reasonable and understand that😂
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You’ve missed the point completely. Spurs had 13 positive confirmed cases. The training ground was closed. The postponement request was not to do with fielding a team – it was about safety of the squad and opposing team, as the risk of transmitting Covid would have been so high. Completely different to today’s fraudulent situation.
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What a load of shite…the other requests have been due to significant covid cases (albeit Liverpool ended up with false positive results).
The fact that arsenal have players in Africa, injuries, terrible discipline and loan decisions that have left them short is their problem. They have taken advantage of a process that has good intentions to ensure they have better chances of winning. That’s the facts…if Arsenal, like Tottenham as an example, had 8 players and 5 coaches with covid, everyone in the country would understand and support the request (even Spurs fans). They don’t, they had 1 confirmed covid case and the rest was part of a usual seasons issues for every club. The game should have gone ahead and if Tottenham, Liverpool, United or anyone else have requests that are not due to covid, the exact same rules should apply.
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Arse-nal living up to their name, Spurs being buggered by the FA just remember last season Dier handball call stood but was deemed to be an error and not enforced for rest of season….man u getting a pen after final whistle….just par for the course really #COYS
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Bit torn on this one. On the one hand, it’s good to see the club finally starting to stand up for itself and not be pushed about out of a weird sense of being above it all and doing things “The Arsenal Way”
On the other, it’s absolutely ludicrous for ANY match to be called off over a few cases of the sniffles. EVERY team could put out a side if they wanted to, most PL clubs have 70 or 80 players on their books. There is no excuse for any club to postpone their games over a mild flu bug.
I’d go even further, I’d actually allow players who test positive to continue playing. 95% of them won’t even know they’ve got the virus anyway. These are professional athletes for fuck sake, no risk to them whatsoever and very little risk to the rest of us either.
As for the stinking Yids on here moaning and whining, absolute pure hypocrisy. They were the ones who started this old bollocks. Had to laugh at the geezer who thinks he’s done his dough on the train fare. You know what that lot are like with money, he’ll not sleep for a week.
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2 things Johnno , your south London club has been corrupt since the 1930’s so don’t give it the ‘Arsenal way’ bullshit. And anti-Semitic comments are racist. Hope this site is reporting you.
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1 thing Ed. Fuck off.
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Carragher is the biggest hypocrite of the lot. Suggesting (perhaps correctly) that Arsenal’s request was unnecessary but never questioning Liverpool’s impossible ratio of false positives!
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Nobody said anything at the start is season when Arsenal had 9 COVID cases & were made to play Brentford then Man City & Chelsea with some players recovering from it,bit of Karma now.
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That game should absolutely have been postponed and the league were complete pricks for not allowing it. The Tottenham game should not have been though and the fact that the Arsenal squad is thin should have been their problem to solve using the squad and youngsters. The request was a joke and the decision to postpone just as bad.
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Woolwich never change. Absolute filth!
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Wanker
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So Spurs wanted to win a weakened arsenal,i enjoy their lamentations.
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Just one problem. The Prem League refused Spurs request. It was only after the whole first team and under 23 squad had to be isolated and the trains ground closed that it was deemed serious enough covid-related matter. Arsenal had one case. Training ground was open. Players were sent out on loan. The Under 23s played a fixture on Friday with a full squad. Not quite the same is it?
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