Coronavirus in football
- Thread starter Samid
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) are here to talk about United's dreadful home defeat at the hands of Big Ange's Tottenham Hotspur. Should this have been the end of Ten Hag? How long does he actually have left? And does Nik finally want ETH out?!
We dont know who's vaccinated or not. Maybe Ralphie himself is a anti-vax nut job like Evra.
Who knows, people are generally weird
They should carry on and play games as long as clubs can put a team out even if they have to use B squads.
There is no guarantee anything will be different in early January or in fact during the entire rest of the season and those following.
You have to get on with it, the show must go on.
There is no guarantee anything will be different in early January or in fact during the entire rest of the season and those following.
You have to get on with it, the show must go on.
I agree. If you can put out an XI and 4 subs from first and youth team players then get on with it.
If some clubs are better prepared to handle it because they have stricter protocols than other clubs then bravo to them.
What if we see this situation at least for the upcoming two three seasons and who knows maybe more! Then surely calling off the season is not the right thing to do here.
Didn't they have to start next season earlier already because of WC? Prolonging this season might be a tough ask then.
It will be another meaningless season either way. The league this season lost integrity for me last night when I saw that Everton lineup yet other matches were called off weirdly.
Everton doesn`t have Covid? They are just all injured.
Are some of our players not vaxed then?
I assumed most sportsmen were vaxed and the odd one like novak were in the overwhelming minority. And the current vaccine was largely ineffective against the omicron variant.
Pretty silly view to adopt really especially when you consider you could literally be ending or shortening some players careers just because "the show must go on".
It's only football.
I know people that won't get the flu vaccine despite being offered it because they consider themselves too fit and have nothing to be worried about. Completely missing the point of getting vaccinated for the benefit of other people.
Ending someone's career how?
Long COVID? Why willingly expose them to a high risk of getting it just for our entertainment?
I don't buy into the idea we should be running squads and clubs into the ground because we want football. It's extremely selfish. We all want football, as do the players, but it needs to be safe. At the moment it clearly isn't given the high volume of cases.
Let the game continue. There are no "two weeks" or easy solutions. Vaccination is here, life has to go on eventually. Zerocovid is an illusion among crazy people. Listen to Klopp. He seems to have understood.
If there is no lockdown among the general public I don't see how cancelling a few games reduces their chances of catching it at all. Their partners, children, friends, family etc will all still be exposing themselves to it among the public, work, school etc. Being outside on the training pitch is probably one of the least risky places the players will be.
Letting fixtures pile up so they later play an obscene number of games in a few days seems more likely to cause problems then fielding a mix of first team and youth team players for a few games.
How can games continue when squads are depleted with positive cases? No one is saying that a 2-3 week league postponement would eradicate covid completely, I've no idea where you've got that idea from, but it's completely wrong.
This is a wider picture than just the PL, these players will be spending time with their families over Christmas, a 'winter break' would only be used as a preventative measure in spreading Coronavirus.
The current vaccine is not largely ineffective against the Omicron variant FFS. I know it's boring but come on, it's important. The vaccines are significantly less effective at stopping transmission of the Omicron variant but as far as we currently know it's still very effective at preventing severe illness / hospitalisation. So far it's still of the order of 90% of people going to hospital with Covid are unvaccinated.
And moreover, if you get your 3rd booster dose it seems to make the vaccine about 75% effective against the new variant anyway which is actually still a very effective vaccine when compared to those for many other diseases around the world. New malaria vaccine is about 30% effective for example and yet is considered a huge success (could save ~150,000 lives a year).
Think of being triple vaxxed as like Covid shooting at you with only 2 bullets in its 6 shooter as you run away instead of 6. Your odds are pretty bloody good really. (Yes I've just been watching the Gunmen of the Apocalypse Red Dwarf)
Keep in mind there is a World Cup next year in freaking Qatar so all the fixtures that get piled up and the season getting extended just leads to some players having an insane schedule next year.
The country is in a moment of uncertainty. A lockdown of sorts is still a possibility.
Games are being cancelled when it's not safe for them to go ahead. Safety should be the priority. If coaching and support staff, along with physios and medical technicians, are unavailable then it's also unsafe for a game to go ahead.
United have 21 cases/isolations currently and it seems a number are staff. It's quite obviously not safe to cobble a team of 11 players together and tell them to just go and play. We are not talking about Sunday League football here on Hackney Marshes. This is elite sport at the highest level. No corners should be cut.
I think a break probably benefits us more than the other teams around us (Arsenal, West Ham, Tottehnam...who seem to be the main rivals for top 4). (1) Rangnick needs time to put his ideas into place. A break now gives him that. (2) We have important players like Varane and Cavani just coming back from injury, with Pogba to come. A break now means we benefit from those players for more games. (3) We have a big, if not bloated squad. So if there is a fixture pile-up in the spring, we should be able to navigate that better than most.
Nothing will likely be different next year or in future. Omicron is just this years antigenically evolved variant. They'll be more, it'll keep coming and it'll never stop.
It's a mistake to think pausing will achieve anything. There are risks, there always have been.
For me they've got to play on, this year and in future ones.
Well it's not you taking the risk is it so I'm not surprised you have this view!
UK will have to go into a hard lockdown to keep this under control.
I'm still going out around London and living my life. Nothing else I can do in my view.
Unless we're expecting footballers to never mix with the general population, then quite a lot will get Covid every year just like they got influenza and other viruses before.
So you personally would be happy playing close contact sports with a large number of people currently? And throughout the pandemic?
That's fine and you're entitled to live through this how you like however you have to respect the views of others as their circumstances may differ to yours.
If there was a lockdown tomorrow I would fully support a PL suspension. You could guarantee cases would come down.
Without it there is still every chance players will get covid, now or in 2 weeks, a month etc. Project Restart worked because people were in lockdown and games could be played in the meantime so you didn't get dozens of players catching it, playing and training together didn''t produce cases so it isn't football itself that is the biggest factor in the players getting it.
It's shocking the level of things that are published in all topics that talk about the virus, it's too serious and should deserve some reflection, either moderate more carefully the comments here or it's better to close these conversations.
Stupidity is contagious too.
Stupidity is contagious too.
Scientists will argue there should be a lockdown and increase in restrictions now. Plenty will say the government are bumbling their way through this.
Ultimately it doesn't change anything of what I just said. If it's not safe to play, for a variety of different reasons, we shouldn't. Ultimately it makes sense to suspend play anyway the more games are called off in the interests of fairness.
You can't go on with some teams playing games and others falling further and further behind with a backlog to catch up on. It's pointless
They could have caught it anywhere, but could also bring it into the training facilities from outside. They could have caught it off fans. I keep banging on about them not wearing masks. I would not be allowing fans to sit within a certain distance of the pitch, leave so many of the front rows empty, social distance them and they have to wear masks. Surely theirs and the players welfare is more important than a fecking atmosphere.
The media drove a lot of this banging on about it's not the same without fans, it isn't but all they care about is the noise they make, well making that noise with no masks is spreading the virus. I was enjoying getting to see all the games.
Right but you can see how saying if it's not safe to play they shouldn't isn't really any different to say Joe Bloggs getting the train, going to the gym, the supermarket, cinema, club etc. and it not being safe to do so. Focusing on just football doesn't really fix the issue in the general population.
The Government is absolutely bumbling their way through it like always. Think about all the socialising with family and friends done over Christmas and New Year, the cases will explode at the start of January so resuming play then doesn't make sense.
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Erm, yes, why the hell wouldn’t he be?
Have football pitches ever proven to be a bigger breeding ground for virus transmission than most other work places?
Tottenham are only 2/3 weeks ahead of us in terms of reorganisation. West Ham are on a hideous run of form, it'd be massive for them if the season was stalled, Chelsea are struggling for form and fitness. The only team that a break doesn't benefit is Arsenal. I think given our fixture list during this period we'd have benefitted massively while our opponents would struggle. It's a bit of a blow for us if the season is halted in all honesty.
A suspension is necessary because it's not fair, nothing to do with curbing cases. Not fair on the teams who don't know their schedules and have to field random lineups, and not fair on the fans who spend a fortune on games only to see them cancelled last minute.
A suspension will not slow Covid down as long as the country remains open and players and their families can easily catch the virus, and I don't see any reason to close things down right now. Cases are no longer a big cause for concern, hospital admissions and ICU occupation are the important things, and none of those are particularly alarming just yet.
A suspension will not slow Covid down as long as the country remains open and players and their families can easily catch the virus, and I don't see any reason to close things down right now. Cases are no longer a big cause for concern, hospital admissions and ICU occupation are the important things, and none of those are particularly alarming just yet.
Weren't a huge number of cases in Liverpool last year traced to the Liverpool Ath Madrid game?
Same with that huge racing festival around same time ... Cheltenham?
Tens of thousands of people within inches of each other is different to most work places.
Are the players within inches of tens of thousands of people?
Did all the Liverpool players catch Covid and all the Cheltenham jockies?
From my understanding, Cheltenham speaks for itself, it’s a festival. And the Liverpool/Athletico and problem with large events tends to be due to transport to and from ground, and pubs, bars, restaurants around, rather than the stadium itself, you know, when Athletico fans weren’t even fecking sitting near Liverpool fans.
Lost me now.
Just replying to point about whether football grounds are similar/different (in terms of transmission) than work places.
But you now seem to be on about distance of sportsmen from the crowd as opposed to the crowd from each other ... as a comparison to work places (which was what I replied on).
Maybe you were in a chain that the last post related to.
(If the point is can players play and be kept relatively safe... yes probably. But what they do outside is the bigger issue as last year and a half tells us some of them make stupid decisions)
Eh? You quoted me, and I was replying to a poster who was asking if someone would be happy to play close contact sport throughout the pandemic. Hence why I asked if the football pitch has ever proven to be a place of high virus transmission moreso than say a staff room, or gym, or supermarket or airport security etc etc.
He was basically making the claim that the PL are putting their health at risk by making them play.
The line-up that was so weak that they drew away to Chelsea with it?
Assuming "we" is United, as you mention Arsenal above and have Hereford as your club on your profile, extra time for our manager to review things surely does help us? Along with getting the likes of Varane and Cavani fit?
Otherwise he's come in at a time we play every 3 days and has very little time to do anything.