Sorry, that's absolute nonsense. How are you going to catch the virus by being in close proximity to someone who doesn't have the virus? People outside or down at the supermarket don't have the same luxury of being able to be tested several times per week. Neither will the surroundings be disinfected to the same degree within an inch of their lives. If players don't wish to play because of vulnerable relatives at home then they should be able to opt out but shouldn't expect to be paid for the privilege. In exactly the same way anyone "normal" who has to continue to work but who refuses to do so would not get paid but would only receive £92 p.w. SSP or whatever it is. I don't think a lot of commentators grasp the enormity of the potential crisis facing football. Those who don't seem to think it will ever be safe to come back in the absence of a vaccine accuse those who want to see the game back on of wanting players to put their bodies or lives on the line for their entertainment. There is an element of that of course as we all enjoy the game but first and foremost, Clubs have to survive so that the players who don't want to play now have a job to go back to in due course. Ironically, the main reason the Clubs have to come back earlier than they might otherwise have to is to pay these self same players who seem to think their income should remain the same apart from a few minor wage deferrals even though their Clubs' revenue has been decimated and is likely to be for some time.

I'd go a bit further. Why should the taxpayer fund (an often multimillionaire) footballer who refuses to play. Any agreement should be along the lines that whilst the Club won't object if the player wishes to withhold their services due to the exceptional circumstances, they won't be paid for the relevant period.

Oh come on, the chances of any player dying as a result of football returning is not actually zero, but is so infinitessily small as to not be worth bothering about. They'd be at far more risk by going down to the shops or supermarket.

Indeed, it was a gamble that backfired but at the time everyone was cockahoop thinking we'd put one over on Ferguson and Man Ure.

Great player at Arsenal, Very good at United, I thought he was terrible at Rovers. I spoke about him once to Terry Ibbotson our former Chief Exec at the time. He was as diplomatic as possible but I got the impression he was very disappointed with Stapleton as well.

May be wrong but I thought Kidd signed Ward and Blake. Other dross like £7m Davies, £6m Dahlin, £5m Dailly and Darren Peacock were Hodgson's brainchilds unless my memory is failing me. You're right we had an abysmal run for about nine months under Hodgson from Christmas up until the time he was sacked the following season which would have translated into relegation had it happened over a single season.

For me Everyone's looking back at Hodgson with way too rose tinted glasses. The problem imo was that he brought in a load of dross and split the dressing room down the middle between the remnants of the Premier League winning team who had always done the business and the new arrivals who didn't. I was told at the time that Sherwood was particularly upset that he was on c 12k p.w. and a dolloper like Dahlin who was brought in for £6m was suddenly on 20k. Fine if Dahlin is doing the business but not if he isn't, and especially more so when he's swinging the lead and never off the treatment table. Sherwood asked for a pay rise to bring him into something approaching parity. Uncle Jack said no as Sherwood had only signed a new contract 6-9 months previously. You can understand both their points of view but with the benefit of hindsight I think the most pragmatic decision would have been to give Sherwood a pay rise, avoid relegation and sell him the following summer. The players were I understand also unhappy about extra training sessions introduced by Hosgson taking the view that the sessions did nothing to aid fitness as they were already fit, but merely served to wear them out and exacerbate a bad injury crisis we had at the time. I've always thought Hodgson performs well when there is no real expectation on him to perform at places like Fulham and WBA but if the pressure is on him to succeed he fails miserably ie at Jack Walker's Blackburn, Liverpool and England. I felt sorry for Kidd after he came in. Lacked experience as a no 1 but the players let him down desperately badly and I think that led to Uncle Jack bawling the players out and accusing them of getting Kidd the sack as a poster alluded to above.

Seria A set to resume in Italy on June 13th subject to Government permission.

If it's on BT, I've got that included in my package and I'll be tuning in simply for the sake of finally seeing some live action. The thing that would interest me from a theoretical standpoint would be whether hone advantage is substantially affected by the lack of a crowd or more or less unchanged.

I don't believe the players are at any particular risk by playing under controlled conditions. Certainly far less than in carrying on with their every day lives. We don't know if the situation will get worse and affect next season, it probably wont, but even if it did at least if this season was completed, when next did eventually resume everyone is starting from a genuine position based on merit as opposed to an unfair and artificially contrived end to this season.

Don't really understand your point. You can't not attempt to complete this season because there might be a second wave at a later date which would affect next season. Using the same analogy there's no point us ever attempting to come out of lockdown or attempting to get normal life back on track because it might trigger a second wave of the virus. You may not agree but in my opinion the situation regarding the virus will be constant whether football returns behind closed doors or not. The situation will be what ever it is with this season either having been completed or cancelled. Far better to have completed it imo

I know you were, apologies for intersecting with my point of view. WWE is World Wrestling Entertainment. Huge Conglomerate based in Florida who have continued to air live shows behind closed doors from their training facility. It appears they're are so integral to the local economy they've been deemed an essential business and been given special dispensation to carry on. I don't really care whether they carry on or not, I was merely pointing out that their behind closed doors product is imo not as good as with a crowd but passable and better than nothing and I'd expect the same to apply to football behind closed doors.

And what if you wait now, because conditions don't conform to some utopian ideal, then there is a second wave at some later date and conditions actually deteriorate slightly? You've needlessly sacrificed this season, even though it might have been possible to finish under controlled conditions, when it wasn't possible to complete next season anyway.

I anticipate football behind closed doors will be a bit like WWE without a crowd. Not as good as the real thing.but better than nothing. Other than the fact that the WWE might be losing a shed load of money I can't for the life of me see the need for wrestling, which is fictitious entertainment, to continue. The difference with football is that it is a legitimate competition and you need to complete last season's fixtures before even thinking about next if the game is going to retain any shred of integrity or credibility.

Because the teams lower down the Leagues are so much more reliant on Gate receipts and matchday revenue. It does seem though that there is a vote to be held later today with the Leagues 1 and 2 Clubs expected to vote in favour of ending the season. Not sure how they survive thereafter, they must have negotiated a bail out from somewhere or other.

That suggestion that players should turn their faces away when tackled is absolutely ludicrous and extremely dangerous. As someone who thinks that the entire situation regarding the virus has been vastly overblown anyway then this is just another example of people being way too namby pamby and expecting life to resume in a zero risk environment which simply isn't possible in the absence of a vaccine. If it is decided matches can resume they should and must be played at full throttle as normal with no nonsense about players not tackling at all or in a safe manner or not coming into proximity for more than a designated time. If matches are played behind closed doors and all the people in the stadium are regularly tested then the likelihood of the virus being transmitted is extremely low. If however one or more player does contract the virus they are young fit and healthy and will make a swift recovery. If they have concerns about someone more vulnerable at home they have the option not to play. It's not absolutely perfect but it's not possible to reach an absolutely perfect solution in the absence of a vaccine. All life involves an element of risk and always has done.

Realistically, whether daily deaths from the virus are down to a much lower level than now, or are still at the current sort of level, playing games behind closed doors under heavily controlled and near sterile conditions isn't going to have any impact one way or the other on that. The question is whether the Emergency Services can provide cover and whether Police and Local Authorities can be persuaded to sanction the fixtures. I appreciate that the lower you move down the footballing pyramid the harder it potentially gets to meet any additional safety requirements. However as regards the potential financial implications of failing to finish the season, I think you're being similarly dismissive. Haven't there been suggestions that 40 or 50 Clubs could go to the wall if the season doesn't finish?

I'm not sure I agree if football should be put on hold indefinitely, football is no different from the rest of Society in that it needs to get back to some semblance of normality at the earliest possible opportunity whilst there is still something left to come back to. The important thing for me is to finish this season whether it happens behind closed doors or not in order to maintain the integrity of the competition. You can't simply disregard the efforts of teams this season nor can you relegate Clubs who weren't aware at the time that there was a possibility they could be relegated on the basis of the season up to that point. If the season doesn't finish on the pitch I'll lose even more love and affinity for what Pele dubbed "the Beautiful Game". I am glad however someone agrees with me on footballers' salaries. I thought it was just me who was sick of hearing about these poor footballers having to take a tiny wage cut against their wishes etc. The very structure of the 92 Clubs is at risk and in Germany at one of the Clubs whose name I can't recall the players agreed to go without pay for 4 months AND contribute towards the wages of the non playing staff. Those guys will be on nothing like the wages of Premier League players and you think top players here would do the same without batting an eyelid yet we're treated to the unedifying spectacle of players and the PFA squabbling over small wage cuts or even wage deferrals which of course in the long run are of no help whatsoever to the Clubs as they have to be paid back at some point anyway whereas lost income will never be replaced. Finish the season, ideally as soon as possible, but really it doesn't matter when. It's next season that doesn't matter, if there isn't time to fit it in, an alternative format or competition can be devised as a one off.

You can sit there making excuses forever and a day about why football can't potentially restart and I'm getting a bit sick of hearing Premier League footballers being paid tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds a week by their Clubs whinging about how they're too scared to go back and play. Many ordinary people have had to carry on and work as normal throughout the Crisis so Im not sure what makes footballers so special or precious that they should be the exception. Football at the higher end is in the fortunate position of being able to afford extensive testing and conditions can artificially be made as safe as is humanly possible. This is an exceptional situation so no solution is going to be absolutely ideal so a bit of give and take is needed on all sides. The current season should be finished behind closed doors asap and if any players are found to contract the virus, those particular players should be put into isolation, there's no need to needlessly isolate entire squads. Players should have the option to opt out if they feel particularly strongly about not playing but if they do they don't get paid - they can't expect to carry on getting paid for doing nothing indefinitely.

Don't think you can put Norwich and Bournemouth in the same financial category as Spurs and Liverpool though. Newcastle are a bit of an exception as Ashley wants to sell therefore he probably doesn't see why he should fund this current loss if he can (legitimately) get away with it.

Don't think they deserve any credit for it whatsoever. They thought they'd see if they could get away with it and were forced into backtracking because of the backlash.

I thought Edge v Orton was outstanding in the end, they both conveyed the impression that they pushed their bodies right to the edge and beyond. The rest of what I saw was absolute garbage imo, bearing in mind I missed Flair and Ripley. Also need to go back and watch the replay to catch Undertaker v Styles. I'm sure they could have done a bit better with the "main event". McIntyre survives 3 or 4 Lesnar finishes, hits 4 of his own, the end. Almost like they'd run out of time at the end. Surely they're not that short of stamina they can't do more than 4 minutes? Overall really poor for me but that's what I expected anyway if I'm being honest.

Absolutely spot on. BTW As a side issue how did the Grealish thing only end up as being a case of breaking the regulations on being out ? Looked like an extremely obvious case of something a lot more serious. And his "apology" consisted of "I'd been stuck inside all week and was going mad then my mate rang me up to go round to his so I went round". Quite staggering.

Only came in from work right at the end of that one but it certainly looked good. Black v Lashley - who cares, in fact Lashley v anyone, who cares? Ziegler v fat bloke - Oh dear. Purchased this against my better judgement last night, more out of morbid curiosity as to how their flagship main event would translate to being behind closed doors. On the evidence of last night - not very well, shows how important the crowd is. Ordered it last night, it kicked off with a decent trailer showing some of the roster in a mythical adventure setting. Then it showed real life footage of them to "For those about to Rock we salute you' by AC/DC and I'm sat there with a beer thinking "Yeah I can really get into this". Then on came an advert saying "Wrestlemania sponsored by Snickers" and it killed the moment stone dead for me. Silly women's tag team match to start. Unlike comments above, I think Asuka is absolutely top class either as a baby face or a heel and should be at the top of the roster with Charlotte Flair instead of being wasted in mid range tag team matches. The less said about the other 3 the better. Nikki Cross in particular must be one of the worst professional wrestlers ever. Another silly match followed, Corbyn v Elias, again who cares? Becky Lynch v Baszler was the highlight of what I saw. Whilst I don't really get the obsession with Becky Lynch or "The Man" gimmick at all - (is it an age thing?) it was a great 10 mins of action. Disappointing accidental looking ending though, much like her win at Wrestlemania last year. The ladder match - JHFC thought this was dire. Couldn't have cared less about any of the contestants and if you don't have very skilled operators who have got their timing exactly right it looks really contrived and you get the farcical situation where one of them is halfway up the ladder with no-one else in sight and about five minutes to get the belt and they have to somehow manage not to get it. Halfway through that match I fell asleep. Annoyed I missed the Undertaker/Styles even though I find it difficult to invest in a big man/much smaller man feud. Oh for the glory days of Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Earthquake, Rick Rude, Million Dollar Man, Savage Flair Undertaker in his prime etc. Plausible superheroes and dastardly heels. Jumpers for goalposts? Looks like £20 largely wasted. Edge and Orton making an excellent first of it though.

We don't know what cuts Bankers may or may not have voluntarily agreed to though, as the Public dont care. And unlike Bankers, top level footballers benefit massively from their high profile most of the time in terms of image rights, sponsorship and social media following. They cant have it both ways, take all the benefit normally, then complain they're under too much public scrutiny when it appears they've committed a massive faux pas.