Argo

Arsenal really use to bug me back then. Any other team in any other era I've always fancied our chances of scalping, and if we took the lead always felt we could hold on, but with Arsenal? Not a bit of it, 2 up with 15 minutes to go? Nah they'll get a result, same again next season? Nah won't hold on, Mutu giving us the lead at Highbury, Terry doing the same the season before or Lampard the season before that? Delaying the inevitable, Gudjohnsen opening the scoring at Stamford Bridge vs Arsenal twice in two months? Fun while it lasted, Zola's free kick? No sorry 150k transfer Kolo Toure will cancel that one out. It got to the point I barely celebrated taking the lead against them because I knew it would be cancelled out. That's why one of my favourite games will always be the very last one at Highbury when we won 2-0 and Robben and Joe Cole scored. I realized at some point while it was only 1-0 that I wasn't paranoid about Arsenal anymore, I wasn't actually fearing an equaliser and knew we were going to hold on. Didn't have the ecstacy of the Wayne Bridge moment but lots of smug satisfaction. Now the roles are completely reversed and we slap them about, and I love every minute of it.

Not really sure that's fair, people are allowed to care for life and think of materialistic things aswell, it's not mutually exclusive. For example, today I want to get my FIFA season done and walk/feed my dog, but obviously the latter is the primary concern and wanting the former also done doesn't mean I want my dog to starve to death.

The irony meter has just broke.

In fairness they could play the last 9 games 2 trillion times and the title will have the same outcome.

You would have thought Levy would have been first to set the precedent!

Honestly Liverpool rarely enter my train of thought here. I made peace with the fact they are winning the league ever since Wolves won at The Ethiad and like I said in the previous post out of all the clubs that will suffer from this they will by far suffer the less in the grand scheme of things. As much as I hate to say it that squad are determined f**kers, losing the league with 97 points lit a fire in them and their title being voided will only serve to do it to an even greater extent most likely. The likes of Sheffield have my sympathy. Things are already f**ked up and it will probably take a few years to get things back to "normal", unless we inadvertedly like whatever the new normal is and stick to it long term. Ultimately every situation now has it's sticky point, semi pro/ amatuer league's being voided are already facing law suits, and ending the league the way it is would be an even worse decision. Finishing out the season and working out the rest later is by far the less complicated out of all complicated flawed solutions. Also what has to be factored is the chances of the virus returning, atleast getting one season safely finished is a much preferable course of action than having two voids on the spin. Also the screenshot I'm posting below demonstrates exactly why voiding won't be done unless it becomes an absolute last resort, rightly or wrongly. I personally think it will take minimum two backfired attempts at restarting the season before it's even put on the table as a legit option, and even then they will exhaust every other possible option before pressing the button.

Point is, just because one thing is more unfair doesn't mean the party in the "less unfair" thing don't have a right to feel aggrieved. For example Barca 2009 happened to us during the Swine Flu pandemic, in the heat of the moment after the game did you shrug your shoulders and say "oh well others have it worse"? That game wasn't more important than human life just like Sheffield's CL qualification isn't now, but their fans will still have the right to be upset.

I'm getting quite sick of this notion that if you care about football that must automatically mean you want people to die. This isn't mutually exclusive, you do realise you can care for life and want football to restart?

It only really has that effect if you're fixated with the August-May calendar which has already been compromised with this virus and the next world cup anyway. I just don't personally think a void is fair. I'm not even talking about Liverpool as out of all the clubs that will suffer they probably will the less as they're still overwhelming favourites next season regardless, in the grand scheme of things it will just be a minor irritation to them. I'm talking about the likes of Sheffield United, their long term future likely depends on their position this season. Get CL football (even Europa) they have funds to truly build and make themselves a long term top half team in the PL, however a voided season means they are back to square one, technically a newly promoted team but every chance they will be deflated, suffer second season syndrome and back down they go for another decade. They have CL football in their hands, they deserve the chance to play those final games and see through what they started. If the seasons voided Spurs and Arsenal will get rewarded with CL football despite both having their worst season for years ahead of Leicester and Sheffield United who have had superb season's and as it stands are both in (factoring SHU game in hand), how is that even remotely fair? Let's not forget the free money the likes of Norwich will get on top of that. I don't know how they will do it, but somehow for the integrity of the sports and so clubs like Sheffield don't unwarrantly suffer long term damage, this season has to be finished somehow.

And what if we void it, start a new season and the second wave hits in November as some predict? It makes more sense to get this season done and ask questions later than to risk two voids on the spin.

Canceling the season just isn't really a smart thing to do right now for many reasons. Firstly there's the threat of this virus returning next winter so it's best to just get this season done then ask questions after, two voided season's on the spin will do a lot of damage to the game. Plus I don't want our young guys stats and wins vs Jose's Spurs (nor our win at Arsenal) wiped of record, I'm sentimental like that. Furthermore we have a lot of wriggle room with the schedule within the next couple of years (although granted it could cause issues with contract timings all over the place). The winter world cup in 2022 and a flexible Euro's (Uefa will move it with no fuss if it means they can complete this season's CL and EL aswell as get next season's completed in full) mean that inadvertently we could find ourselves with a schedule that would allow us to finish the season after next right before the Qatar world cup, then after that TPTB can slowly work on getting the schedule back on to an August-May footing. For many reasons I don't think a void will even be considered at this point, the only way it could join the board as a serious option is if an attempt to restart the season backfires spectacularly, and even then I reckon they'll give it another try.

In fairness I still struggle to watch these games in complete comfort, I have this tendency of actually going back and recalling my thoughts and feelings at the time. For example the CL quarter at Highbury, I remember the nerves and the feeling of dread facing Arsenal back then like it was yesterday, and I genuinely jumped up watching Bridge's winner again.

IIRC Valencia was the first place in Spain hit with relitevely high numbers. Feels a long time ago now but mainland Spain had few cases in mid February, possibly even none. If the virus is as easy to spread as research is suggesting, that match could have easily done a lot of damage as they were playing in Milan, Atlanta fans went back to Bergamo and obviously Valencia fans back to Spain.

The president of Bergamo has come out and implied he feels the Atlanta Vs Valencia match is a key player to things escalating so badly in Northern Italy and Spain. If we won our CL group that would have probably have been us and by extension England, seems one thing the spread of the virus has in common with football and that's the very small margains.

Just to put it out there, our CL win at Highbury in 2004 I in BT tonight with our 4-2 win Vs Barcelona following suit same time tomorrow.