{"id":558,"date":"2020-03-16T07:19:47","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T07:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=558"},"modified":"2020-03-20T22:41:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T22:41:04","slug":"table-setting-in-a-time-of-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=558","title":{"rendered":"Table setting in a time of coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Elite football in England has been suspended until at least April 3. Given that UK government advisors are suggesting that the Covid-19 pandemic will not peak in the country until May or June, an April 3 return of football seems optimistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Football authorities will be keen to play out the outstanding competitive games, not least to avoid lawsuits from relegated clubs that will have missed out on last-gasp chances of salvation. UEFA may accommodate them by moving the 2020 Euros to next year. Nonetheless, the prospect that this season is run is real. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If so, how do we declare the Premiership season for the record? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most straightforward answer is to proclaim the season null and void. This has many attractions for the Arsenal supporter. Liverpool would not be champions and Leeds United would not be promoted from the Championship. Also, our season to forget would be forgotten, obliterated from the record. However, a Klopp-crony media would not put up with that for a minute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternatives? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remaining games could be adjudicated by the equivalent of the Pools Panel, the group of ex-players who decided on behalf of the football pools what the result of postponed games would have been. (For far-flung \u2018holics, the football pools were a UK betting pool in which punters predicted the outcome of league games each week with forecasting score draws being the holy grail. For younger \u2018holics the Pools Panel was introduced in 1963 when bitter weather forced a three-week suspension of league football.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The up-to-date version of this is perhaps the match week predictions on the BBC by Mark Lawrenson and his weekly celebrity guest. These are so dire that the idea is barely worth thinking about for real. And could we rely on anyone correctly to predict the 10-game winning run we were about to go on to close out the season? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The next choice is to freeze the table as is and declare the positions to be final. The only snag is that while most clubs have played 29 games, four clubs \u2014 including the Arsenal \u2014 have a game in hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would only be fair in such circumstances to adjust the table based on points won per game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would leave the top five unchanged. Liverpool would be champions; Manchester City would be runners-up; Leicester City, Chelsea and Manchester United would complete the top quintet. Sheffield United and Wolves would swap places in sixth and seventh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the most compelling reason for making the adjustment is that it would bring an instant St Totteringham\u2019s Day. We would move up to eighth, and Mourinho\u2019s Miseries would slip to ninth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No change elsewhere in the table. Norwich, Aston Villa and Bournemouth go down. Eighth might be sufficient to qualify us for next season\u2019s Europa League, depending on what happens to the place reserved for the FA Cup winner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would not, however, get us back to the Champions League next season. For that to happen, the shortened season would have to be ranked alphabetically, which would make us runners-up. The neighbours escape relegation, sadly, by one place as Watford, West Ham and Wolves go down, but all hail the new champions, AFC Bournemouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay healthy, \u2018holics. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elite football in England has been suspended until at least April 3. Given that UK government advisors are suggesting that the Covid-19 pandemic will not peak in the country until May or June, an April 3 return of football seems optimistic.  Football authorities will be keen to play out the outstanding competitive games, not least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}