DBasia.news – The North London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League was originally scheduled to take place on Sunday (16/01) evening WIB, however, at Arsenal’s request to the Premier League, the match was postponed.
Arsenal reasoned that there was a shortage of players to play the match and this was not understood by many, because there was a lot of evidence when matches were still going on despite the lack of players due to the corona virus, injuries, and those who missed playing in the Africa Cup of Nations.
“The (North London derby) has been postponed. What started as a postponement due to the pandemic is now a club that doesn’t have their best team,” said football pundit Gary Neville of the postponement of the North London Derby.
“The Premier League has to stop this now, give an explanation and say all games go on unless you have an incredible number of coronavirus cases. That’s wrong.”
North London derby postponed
Not only Neville who questioned it but also Tottenham who became Arsenal’s opponent. They questioned the criteria set by the Premier League in its consideration of postponing the match, as well as the fact that Tottenham were expelled from the Europa Conference League due to the corona virus which prevented them from playing against Rennes.
“We are very surprised that this (Arsenal) request has been approved (Premier League),” read a statement from Tottenham.
“We ourselves were disqualified from the Europa Conference League after a large number of COVID cases meant we needed to reschedule the game and our request to move our Leicester game was not approved – only to be later postponed when Leicester requested.”
“The original aim of this guide – here – was to address the availability of players directly affected by the COVID-19 cases, resulting in a reduced squad that combined with injuries would result in clubs being unable to field teams.”
“We don’t believe it was an intention to deal with player availability not related to COVID. We may now see unintended consequences of this rule.”
“It is important to have clarity and consistency in the application of the rules. Once again the fans saw their plans disrupted in a very short time.”
“We sincerely apologize to our fans – some of whom will be traveling long distances,” the statement read.