Volcanic ash could blow up in Premier League faces
Motorway service stations between Merseyside and Madrid and west London and northern Germany could soon be getting some famous visitors.
As Liverpool and Fulham prepare to hit the road for their Europa League semi-final trips to Atlético Madrid and Hamburg respectively, their tough tasks to reach the final are obvious. Even before ash from Eyjafjallajoekull rendered the possibility of air travel about as impossible as it is to pronounce the name of the Icelandic volcano, the duo were facing difficult contests, so why are the Premier League making it even harder for them?
It’s bad enough that Liverpool have to play West Ham tonight as it is, giving them a limited recovery time before Thursday’s contest at the Vicente Calderón Stadium.
Of course the Premier League couldn’t have foreseen the converging of tectonic plates in the North Atlantic, but the league could have insisted that tonight’s game have been played – as Fulham’s was – on Saturday afternoon to give one of their remaining teams in Europe a better chance of progressing. The real problems could be yet to come though.
Liverpool will probably have to set off on their 2,600-mile round journey in the immediate aftermath of tonight’s game, and while there’s little that can be done about that, it is their following league match that could suffer.
Both clubs are unlikely to return from their European assignments until Saturday morning at the earliest, giving them very little preparation time for their Sunday afternoon fixtures, when the Reds are at Burnley and Fulham face a trip up to Merseyside to face Everton.
Both Rafael Benitez and Roy Hodgson are about as unlikely to field the same starting XIs for both their European and domestic contests as it is to look up to the sky and see a plane right now, and so surely the league could postpone both matches, or at the very least move them back to next Monday night.
Should a travel-weary Liverpool field a weakened team at Burnley – which they surely now will do – and lose then the other teams in relegation trouble will be livid, indeed, Benitez could well send out a shadow side tonight in anticipation of the problems ahead.
Similarly the teams pushing for European qualification will be unhappy should Everton easily see off a makeweight Fulham team at the weekend, and so the integrity of the Premier League will once again come under scrutiny. In the past year alone, Portsmouth have entered administration and been docked nine points, while Manchester United, Wolves and Fulham have all been accused of picking weakened teams to protect their own interests.
The league should act swiftly and rearrange both of their sole remaining European representatives’ weekend fixtures. Liverpool are free between May 2nd and the final round of fixtures on May 9th, and while it is more difficult to find a window in Fulham’s calendar, a compromise can surely be reached that would allow Hodgson’s men to fulfil their fixtures at their full capacity.
The league should be proud of the fact that they have two remaining teams in the last four of a European competition, and so arrangements should be made to help them deal with their gruelling journeys.
If they’re not, then another team selection debate looks like erupting next weekend.
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