08 Jan 2021 15:56:16
I think fair play to Villa for seemingly being willing to play tonight without any of their first team or management involved. I assume the necessary precautions have been taken and the necessary testing (with negative results) carried out on anybody who will be involved tonight.

I expect, given that its the cup and given that we would likely have rested a lot of players anyway, Villa would have been playing a weakened team regardless of any C.V. problems. I wonder whether this will set any form of precedent for league matches. Would Villa have so readily committed to playing the match with their U23s if it had been in the league or would they have pushed for postponement? Will the fact that they are playing tonight without any protest or argument create an expectation that other teams who find themselves in a similar position, but with a league fixture to play, will also have to put a team out.

Also, does this call into question the previous postponement of City's match with Everton and Tottenham at Fulham? The argument for postponing those matches was, I believe, for player safety and to avoid the risk of further spreading of the challenge, not because City or Fulham had insufficient players to select. Given that Villa are going ahead tonight, could/ should City and Fulham have done the same? Will the next club that finds themselves in this position be expected to play?

1.) 08 Jan 2021
08 Jan 2021 16:19:43
Given that Liverpool had to play a team of youngsters whilst the First XI were at the World Club Cup has virtually obliged them to rescind I think.
Whether Liverpool pushed this point, I don’t know.

2.) 08 Jan 2021
08 Jan 2021 17:32:11
Circumstances are a bit different, so personally I would hope we didn't push the World Club Cup last year as a reason for proceeding with the match.

Maybe I'll be corrected on this, but it might have been open to Villa to request a postponement but they opted not to due to fixture congestion. As I understand it, they have fixtures every midweek until the middle of February and the 4th round is due to be played on the weekend of the 23rd of January.

So they'd have had to have played Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday in one week to fit it in or something like that. And they might still be missing a load of first teamers by the time the revised date comes around anyway.

3.) 08 Jan 2021
08 Jan 2021 18:35:18
Awww, they were happy to force us to play 2 games in 2 days, my sympathy is a little limited here.