The Premier League will resist calls to change their rules around matches being postponed, despite the mass hysteria over Arsenal’s game against Tottenham being moved.
As Jake Humphries tweeted over the weekend, there were a lot of people saying ‘this has nothing to do with Arsenal’ before listing Arsenal-specific reasons as to why they were annoyed.
Most times I’ve seen ‘it has nothing to do with Arsenal’ this past few days, it’s been followed by comment or criticism that makes me think it has everything to do with Arsenal.
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) January 16, 2022
Despite the hysteria, which saw grown men acting like children and, in some cases, gaslighting in ways Boris Johnson would have been proud of, the Premier League has no plans to change their rules which allow for the IMPACT of Covid, along with other injuries, to be taken into consideration, not just positive Covid cases.
This is unlikely to sit well with the likes of Tottenham Hotspur who, unable to produce a DVD of the north London derby, released a pathetic statement instead.
In their best self-pitying voice, they wrote, “We regret to announce that Sunday’s north London derby against Arsenal has been postponed.
“This follows an application from Arsenal to the Premier League on the basis of a combination of COVID, existing and recent injuries and players on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations.
“We are extremely surprised that this application has been approved.
“We ourselves were disqualified from the European Conference League after a significant number of COVID cases meant we needed to reschedule a fixture and our application to move our Leicester fixture was not approved – only for it to be subsequently postponed when Leicester applied.
“The original intention of the guidance – here – was to deal with player availability directly affected by COVID cases, resulting in depleted squads that, when taken together with injuries, would result in the club being unable to field a team.
“We do not believe it was the intent to deal with player availability unrelated to COVID.
“We may now be seeing the unintended consequences of this rule.
“It is important to have clarity and consistency on the application of the rule.
“Yet again, fans have seen their plans disrupted at unacceptably short notice.
“We shall once again send food deliveries to the local food banks to avoid unacceptable waste.
“We are sincerely sorry for our fans – some of whom will have travelled great distances.”