There will be no more scenes like these should the game get underway on June 8
It’s very easy to see why the bottom six are entirely opposed to playing games on neutral grounds when refreshing one’s memory of the fIxtures some of them are facing.
Amid all the to-ing and fro-ing over what happens next, it’s the players at the bottom who have to go out and face some of the most vital games in their personal histories in the middle of a global pandemic
So we took the time this morning to check out which each of the bottom six face and if anyone can make head or tail of whether they should vote to continue or not good luck given the neutral ground proposition.
Starting from the bottom here’s how the fixture list looks for the remaining nine games should they ever get played and whether they were originally at home or away!:
NORWICH CITY
Southampton (home), Everton (home), Man United (home), Arsenal (away), Brighton (home) Watford (away). Irons (home), Burnley (home), Manchester City.
CandH max points 6 TOTAL 27 RELEGATED
ASTON VILLA
Sheffield United ( h) Chelsea (h), Newcastle (a) Wolves (h), Liverpool (a) Man U (h), Palace (h) Everton (a) Arsenal (h), Irons (a)
CandH max points 5 TOTAL 30 RELEGATED
BOURNEMOUTH
Palace (h), Wolves a), Newcastle (h), Man U (a), Spurs (h), Leicester (h) (Man City (a) Southampton (h), Everton (a).
CandH max points total 4 TOTAL 31 RELEGATED
WATFORD
Leicester (h), Burnley (a) Southampton (h), Chelsea (a), Norwich (h), Newcastle (h), Irons (a), Manchester City (h), Arsenal (a).
CandH Max points 6 TOTAL 33
IRONS
Wolves (h), Spurs (a), Chelsea (h), Newcastle (a), Burnley (h), Norwich (a), Watford (h), Man U (a) A Villa (h)
CandH max points 9 TOTAL 36
BRIGHTON
Arsenal (h), Leicester (a), Man U (h), Norwich (a), Liverpool (h), Man City (h), Southampton(a), Newcastle (h), Burnley (a)
CandH max points 5 TOTAL 33
AND WHY WOULDN’T I BE GENEROUS TO THE IRONS? 🙂
COYI
Thanks for the comparison: all the bottom six have more home than away games! They have every right to object to neutral venues.
Home advantage may be lost when playing at neutral grounds but there may be times when it works massively in the favour of some of the relegation threatened teams.
For example, when Villa travel to Everton. Would usually be a fairly tough game with Villa at best maybe getting a point with the Goodison crowd roaring Everton on even though they have nothing to play for. This time, at a neutral ground, Everton will have nothing to play for and no crowd pressuring and encouraging them to give everything. This sort of game could be much more likely to be won by Villa with them knowing they need the points to remain Premier League players.
Same thing could play out for any of the relegation threatened teams that have fixtures against side like Newcastle, Burnley and Palace..