Sunday 3rd January
Chelsea v
Manchester City
Kickoff: 4:30pm (UK)
Stamford Bridge, London, UK
Live TV: SkySports (UK)
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Adam Nunn
Fourth Official: Peter Bankes
VAR: Mike Dean
Assistant VAR: Darren Cann
Premier League Stats
Poor overall record against them in the PL era. Poor away record. Poor recent record as well ... won both league games at home in last two seasons but lost both away fixtures ...
After being hailed as the outsider title challengers after a run of wins, they now are in the middle of a proper wobble ... three losses and a draw in last five for them, the only win coming against West Ham at home. Compared to that we are on a slow and steady upward curve in terms of results as well as performances ... well, we were ... until Covid halted us last night ...
Pre-Match Thoughts
As things stand, this game is scheduled to go ahead ... the only way I see this being postponed is if another club/s report Covid outbreaks similar to ours and then the season is halted altogether. Short of that we'd be made to play this and the next games with whatever we can put together ... the rules and so called guidance which every club agreed to at the start of the season (as per Sky Sports News this morning) was if we can pull together 14 players (and that includes Under 21s), we must fulfil the fixture commitment ...
The reason I understand that didn't apply to last night's postponement was purely because of the fixture scheduling. The Everton game was scheduled 46 hours after the Newcastle game finished and so there was only one round of Covid tests possible (and not the two consecutive negatives required to clear players and staff) ... plus the fact that the same club (us) had reported 4 positive cases (Gabby, Walker and two staff) just in the last round 48 hours ago and the next one produced five more (three players, two more staff) then they simply couldn't rule out anymore till next two rounds of testing are done ... given that at the game on Boxing day all squad and staff was together in closed space/dressing rooms, facilities, team meetings etc etc.
All the hooblah caused by Everton's non-sensical statement and the media jumping on to making us the bad guy keep forgetting the biggest culprit in all this is the TV companies and PL themselves for scheduling games so close together that should such a situation arise no club can clear any players or staff with just one round of tests in between. Even with the fast testing available to elite sports, they're normally only testing players once a week (now in Tier 4 clubs are required to do that twice a week) and even then the results aren't instant but come back with a wait time of around 24 hours before you actually find out.
Focusing on Chelsea ... City are testing everyone today (Tue) and results would come in tomorrow (Wed) ... another round would then be done Thu/Fri again so we'd know for sure on Friday (or Saturday latest) what the status is ... as in how many are clear to resume training and prepare for Chelsea ... I suppose with deep clean already underway of the CFA and that 48 hours idle time given to surfaces and rooms etc. of no use, we could potentially return to training etc. on Thursday if NO NEW positive cases come in the today's test (results tomorrow). If more cases come out then another round of tests won't be reported back till Friday at the earliest leaving only Saturday for the CFA to be opened up again.
When Newcastle earlier closed their training ground and that had to be closed for eight days ... they only had to postpone one game because their scheduling at that time dictated they weren't in Champions League and no domestic cup games scheduled mid-week, they only had one game a week going at the start of December. Timing for us however has us scheduled for 5 games in 15 days (Newcastle to Birmingham) ... so it's anyone's guess how this pans out.
As things stand, we'd be playing Chelsea on Sunday ... without Jesus, Walker, Ederson, Cancelo and Torres ... and with training resuming only on Thursday (which could even possibly be just the one day of training on Saturday) ...
Stay safe everyone ... Happy New Year Blues - May 2021 be nothing like 2020 ... for City as well as for us all!
Chelsea v
Manchester City
Kickoff: 4:30pm (UK)
Stamford Bridge, London, UK
Live TV: SkySports (UK)
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Adam Nunn
Fourth Official: Peter Bankes
VAR: Mike Dean
Assistant VAR: Darren Cann
Premier League Stats
Poor overall record against them in the PL era. Poor away record. Poor recent record as well ... won both league games at home in last two seasons but lost both away fixtures ...
After being hailed as the outsider title challengers after a run of wins, they now are in the middle of a proper wobble ... three losses and a draw in last five for them, the only win coming against West Ham at home. Compared to that we are on a slow and steady upward curve in terms of results as well as performances ... well, we were ... until Covid halted us last night ...
Pre-Match Thoughts
As things stand, this game is scheduled to go ahead ... the only way I see this being postponed is if another club/s report Covid outbreaks similar to ours and then the season is halted altogether. Short of that we'd be made to play this and the next games with whatever we can put together ... the rules and so called guidance which every club agreed to at the start of the season (as per Sky Sports News this morning) was if we can pull together 14 players (and that includes Under 21s), we must fulfil the fixture commitment ...
The reason I understand that didn't apply to last night's postponement was purely because of the fixture scheduling. The Everton game was scheduled 46 hours after the Newcastle game finished and so there was only one round of Covid tests possible (and not the two consecutive negatives required to clear players and staff) ... plus the fact that the same club (us) had reported 4 positive cases (Gabby, Walker and two staff) just in the last round 48 hours ago and the next one produced five more (three players, two more staff) then they simply couldn't rule out anymore till next two rounds of testing are done ... given that at the game on Boxing day all squad and staff was together in closed space/dressing rooms, facilities, team meetings etc etc.
All the hooblah caused by Everton's non-sensical statement and the media jumping on to making us the bad guy keep forgetting the biggest culprit in all this is the TV companies and PL themselves for scheduling games so close together that should such a situation arise no club can clear any players or staff with just one round of tests in between. Even with the fast testing available to elite sports, they're normally only testing players once a week (now in Tier 4 clubs are required to do that twice a week) and even then the results aren't instant but come back with a wait time of around 24 hours before you actually find out.
Focusing on Chelsea ... City are testing everyone today (Tue) and results would come in tomorrow (Wed) ... another round would then be done Thu/Fri again so we'd know for sure on Friday (or Saturday latest) what the status is ... as in how many are clear to resume training and prepare for Chelsea ... I suppose with deep clean already underway of the CFA and that 48 hours idle time given to surfaces and rooms etc. of no use, we could potentially return to training etc. on Thursday if NO NEW positive cases come in the today's test (results tomorrow). If more cases come out then another round of tests won't be reported back till Friday at the earliest leaving only Saturday for the CFA to be opened up again.
When Newcastle earlier closed their training ground and that had to be closed for eight days ... they only had to postpone one game because their scheduling at that time dictated they weren't in Champions League and no domestic cup games scheduled mid-week, they only had one game a week going at the start of December. Timing for us however has us scheduled for 5 games in 15 days (Newcastle to Birmingham) ... so it's anyone's guess how this pans out.
As things stand, we'd be playing Chelsea on Sunday ... without Jesus, Walker, Ederson, Cancelo and Torres ... and with training resuming only on Thursday (which could even possibly be just the one day of training on Saturday) ...
Stay safe everyone ... Happy New Year Blues - May 2021 be nothing like 2020 ... for City as well as for us all!