RevidgeBlue

I think you are labouring under the mis apprehension that the Premier League providing private testing for footballers has any sort of impact on the availability of publicly funded testing from a separate source for the Public, NHS and Care Homes. You're not going to be swayed or dissuaded on that point so there's no point debating it further. If it was the case that testing footballers meant more deserving cases went without, I'd agree. with you.

I'm probably the wrong person to be asking that Stuart. You know my views on the entire thing, I would never have imposed a blanket lockdown in the first place. However, by any standard, if the general public had all had the benefit of being tested twice a week for the last month (like footballers will have by the time they restart) then yes, undoubtedly.

I'd personally have no qualms about attending a game with crowds as normal tomorrow if it was suddenly deemed legal but if as seems likely it is deemed necessary to keep crowds away from football until say the start of the 2021-22 season I'd have no problem with the game continuing behind closed doors until that point if it meant Clubs survived. Some Clubs will survive, I think many lower down and not so low down the Pyramid will go unless broadcasters can be persuaded to provide generous deals which would replace gate and matchday revenue to televise all games live. As the demand for that in the Lower leagues is likely to be limited I fear it's unlikely.

Testing completely irrelevant then?

There is not the slightest chance that football would have been given the green light to resume if either: 1) Private testing of footballers had any impact on the availability of tests for the NHS or care homes or 2) The Government thought that by the time football is ready to resume the emergency services couldn't provide cover without leaving the NHS short.

Christ, people want to have their cake and eat it it regarding this crisis. They give the Government all manner of stick about insufficient testing. (Probably with a lot of justification in the early part of the crisis). Then, when testing is available, they're still obsessing over complete irrelevances like whether or not footballers are actually in contact for an average of 88 seconds or whether it is in fact much longer. I.e. The fact the players have been regularly tested over a period and cleared to play is irrelevant and doesn't matter. You can't have it both ways, either testing is of vital importance or it isn't.

Tired of repeating myself on this, but it doesn't matter how long they spend in close proximity to each other if none of them have the virus. The next round of testing of the German players will be very instructive as it will show whether more players than you might expect picked up the virus by playing compared to a similar sized sample of their general population.

I thought I'd heard seven days mentioned in relation to the handful of German players who tested positive and in the event any Premier League players did the same. That would also tie in with the advice for the rest of the population. Seven days self isolation if you display symptoms, fourteen if anyone in your household does.

Is it not seven days?

Hadn't heard that, cheers.

Are we not a bit behind the curve on this or is it in line with other Clubs? I'd have thought if we only have 3-4 weeks to prepare, resuming training a week late could make quite a difference.

It might be the case, I'd expect that people will be a bit hesitant at first then after a while things would get back to normal and eventually it would all be forgotten about. Creatures of habit like Matty says.

So, you don't respect my point of view, but you are having a go at me for putting forward a differing point of view to Paul? That's a bit the pot calling the kettle black isn't it?

They had better only be temporary or life wont really be worth living.

Dear me Paul, you will be struggling if you take such a high handed approach to everyone else. It is not optional not compulsory to re-sanitise your trolley at the supermarket and like the chap you've demonized above I wouldn't even give it a second thought. I take exactly the opposite viewpoint. Maybe it is temporarily acceptable to be OCD and wash your hands 25 times a day whilst the virus is still about but in the long run it will be desperately detrimental to our overall health if everyone insists on living in a totally antiseptic environment. We'll lose all our natural immunity to bacteria and infection.

Herein lies the problem. People have to get it out of their heads that restrictions and social distancing are the norm. They are not.

Amen to that. Nail, hammer, head.

Weren't you (correctly) arguing last weekend that it was ridiculous that footballers in an artificially created bubble should have to social distance between themselves on a team coach and that the virus couldn't have have happened to a worse generation? So if you (correctly) think it's being overly precious that footballers should have to social distance from one another on the way to the game, why do you now appear to think that it's not safe for the same footballers (who have all been tested to within an inch of their lives) to be in close proximity to each other on a football pitch?

I'll have to do an Arsene Wenger there and say "I did not see it." I did see Sky News the other day when it was sunny and they had a reporter at Brighton all day hoping to catch huge crowds of people failing to social distance. There was hardly anyone about and by the end of the day he was reduced to saying how difficult it was to social distance on the pavement by the main road or on the gang ways leading down to the pier on beach. (If there's been anyone about) Then it cut to a Council leader on the beach saying how desperately worried they were about a second peak of the virus and all you could see in the background were people dotted about in groups of two in deckchairs socially distancing perfectly. Must be a better class of punter in Brighton than Southend.

For heavens sake. It doesn't matter that the footballers will be in close proximity to each other, they will all have been regularly tested over a sustained period therefore they are extremely unlikely to either have the virus themselves or pass it on to anyone else by playing.

Other Countries have chosen to finish their seasons too and seem to be either getting on with it or planning for it with considerably less commotion than we are. Do Clubs pay players too much money? Absolutely. Is the mess they are in of their own making? Even less doubt. However when people are talking about maintaining the integrity of the Competition by finishing the season they mean the "sporting" integrity. Not whether it's morally right to pay someone hundreds of thousands of pounds a week for kicking a ball about. Surely if finances permit, it's better for ANY League to complete the season rather than on paper by a points per game basis. And if that is not logistically possible it's still slightly better to hold play offs to decide promotion and relegation. Though not as good as seeing the season out as you don't know who might have tanked or come with a wet sail at the end of the season and moved into or dropped in and out of the relevant positions.

Because the Government have said that football can return under extremely tightly controlled conditions. If hairdressers and the like were able to replicate those conditions, then they"d probably be able to open at a similar time but it's not practical or economically viable for individual customers to test themselves twice a week for a month so they can have a haircut at the end of it.

To be fair, everyone takes every bit of PR guff from the Government as gospel when they're trying to scare the **** out of the Public regarding the virus.

Disagree Paul. The top of the agenda is that Clubs survive. If they can manage that, then they can decide what measures they can take to look after the fans. if Clubs go to the wall, there'll be nothing left for their fans to go and watch in socially distanced conditions or "normal ones".

Great Argument. "If we don't come out of lockdown fast or completely enough everything will go belly up, so football may as well do so as well." So in that scenario, two wrongs DO make a right!