How much will Coronavirus (COVID-19) impact Aston Villa's season?

[Ads]

Closed doors is bollocks. Suspend the leagues you daft whoppers.

[Footy-Vill]

Have they ever suspended the football league outside of world war years ?

[cdbearsfan]

Suspend the leagues till when? Is this gonna be sorted in a few weeks?

[Ads]

As long as it takes. Playing it behind closed doors is utterly shite. Football without fans? What's the point.

[PeterWithe]

It’s going to be difficult for the lower leagues to play games and incur expenses without the income from crowds.

[cdbearsfan]

As long as it takes. Playing it behind closed doors is utterly shite. Football without fans? What's the point.

Well, Serie A are talking about not finishing the season. One of the options is just leaving the table as it is.

If the Premier League took that option, we would be relegated. Our only chance of survival is completing the season, or at least playing enough games to get to the giddy heights of seventeenth.

I can't see them just delaying the season indefinitely. You would have the European competitions starting without knowing which teams are in them. That makes no sense.

Now, obviously, I hope we finish the season properly in front of crowds. But I'd rather play in front of empty stadia than risk relegation by default.

[PeterWithesShin]

Finishing the season and basing titles/relegation/promotion on current position would be shit and unfair to loads of clubs, and i'd say that if we were 14th. I think they'd carry the season on with games behind closed doors. But as I said earlier in the thread that will completely fuck lower/non league clubs if they have no spectators.

[cdbearsfan]

I don't disagree, though I think England would be okay as the Premier League would bung clubs lower down some money, under pressure. Other countries would see more bankruptcies.

[PeterWithesShin]

You'd hope there'd be something in place but these days i'm not convinced that the right thing will always be done. And how far down the pyramid do you go? Portsmouth, Sunderland and Ipswich in div 3 all average more than top flight Bournemouth, as do div 4 Bradford.

[Ads]

As long as it takes. Playing it behind closed doors is utterly shite. Football without fans? What's the point.

Well, Serie A are talking about not finishing the season. One of the options is just leaving the table as it is.

If the Premier League took that option, we would be relegated. Our only chance of survival is completing the season, or at least playing enough games to get to the giddy heights of seventeenth.

I can't see them just delaying the season indefinitely. You would have the European competitions starting without knowing which teams are in them. That makes no sense.

Now, obviously, I hope we finish the season properly in front of crowds. But I'd rather play in front of empty stadia than risk relegation by default.

You had me at paragraph 1. Don't finish the season. Let's pretend it didn't happen.

The potential hilarity of Monday night 5 aside with 6 or 7 Scouse season ticket holders would cause both my testicles to fall off through laughter. And we would stay up loike.

[cdbearsfan]

It would be hilarious, but we know it isn't going to happen. Only season not to finish was 1939-40, and they had only played three games.

[OzVilla]

Arsenal players are in isolation and their game v's Man City has been postponed.  This is starting to unravel. I think this will move quickly now.

[frank black]

If games get postponed what’s the max time this could occur without scrapping the leagues? 2-3 weeks? This is going to get a lot worse and I expect we are going to have to have closed doors games. Either that or scrap it and put the teams into playoff games to decide promotion/relegation (god knows how that could work either, teams would commence legal challenges etc) . Unprecedented times

[andyh]

Given John Percys piece about Chelsea being the crux game for Smith, I’ll bet he’s hoping someone at the club is sneezing during training today.

[OzVilla]

There's still a quarter of the season to play but with the Euro's the timings mean they've not got much wriggle room.

It'll have to be closed doors I think, can't see anything being scrapped.  Thing is, once it starts and games begin to be postponed it's hard to see where you'd re-arrange.