Arsenal’s match against Manchester City has been postponed to make room for their rescheduled clash with PSV Eindhoven.
The Premier League have confirmed that Arsenal’s match against Manchester City has been postponed to make room for the rescheduled clash with PSV, which will now take place on Thursday, October 20th, at 18:00.
In his pre-Champions League match press conference, Pep Guardiola hinted at the postponement, bringing up the match unprompted.
“I don’t know if the Arsenal game will be played now,” Guardiola told reporters.
The uncertainty came from discussions around how to reschedule Arsenal’s postponed Europa League fixture against PSV Eindhoven, initially due to take place this Thursday.
Arsenal needed to find a way to schedule the game before December 31st, or they faced an automatic forfeit. But with the World Cup in November-December, there weren’t many opportunities to pencil it in.
The October 19th midweek always looked like the best opportunity to schedule the game with PSV. But that meant moving the City game.
The BBC’s Simon Stone reported that Arsenal forfeiting the tie was always thought to be an extremely unlikely outcome. It’s not like Spurs’ situation last year, for example, when they only had a couple of weeks to reschedule the game.
Even with all the fixture congestion, Arsenal had more than three months to sort this match out, so the chances they could find a solution were much higher. Thankfully, they’ve now done so.
