Another weekend of Premier League football is coming up, but fans will have to wait until 3pm on Saturday for the ball to be kicked, as Liverpool generally cannot play games after 12.30pm.
Soccer fans will have to be patient for Saturday’s extravaganza of Premier League football. There will be no kick-off at 12:30pm, which is unusual in the top flight.
The first ball will be kicked at 3pm and five games will be played. Brighton host Leeds, Burnley welcome Arsenal, Brentford make a short trip to Crystal Palace, Wolves visit Fulham and Manchester United travel to Nottingham Forest.
Then, at 5.30pm, it’s Tottenham vs. Chelsea again across London. However, the match didn’t end there, as a struggling Liverpool faced a resurgent Aston Villa at a surprising kick-off time of 8pm.
Following last weekend’s game against Brentford, it will be the second week in a row that Liverpool will play a Saturday game at 8pm, and fans will have a natural question: why isn’t that game in the 12.30pm slot? Mirror football explains why.
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Why isn’t there a 12:30pm kick-off today?
The decision to move the match between Liverpool and Villa to 8pm was partly due to the England vs Australia rugby league match being held at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium. Rugby starts at 2.30pm not far from Anfield.
But that’s not the only reason. Liverpool faced Palace in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday at 7.45pm and could not play until Saturday evening at the earliest.
FIFA reached an agreement with the players’ union this summer that guarantees teams at least 72 hours of rest between kickoffs. This rule was also present in Liverpool’s schedule last week, with the Reds playing Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League last Wednesday before playing away to Brentford at 8pm.
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp regularly complained about the short turnaround between games, particularly the 12.30pm kick-off. TNT Sport has the rights to the slot and Klopp even criticized the broadcaster in one of his final press conferences.
Can Liverpool regain their form against Aston Villa? Let us know your score prediction in the comments section.
“Just the other day, I was talking with a colleague from TNT, our favorite TV channel, and we’ll never watch it again,” the German joked.
However, his successor Arne Slott doesn’t seem to be too concerned, explaining when asked about them last season: “If 12:30 is a difficult time to perform, then I’m a really stupid manager, because we train every day at 12:00.” “At the time, there was no idea that the performance behind it was that difficult.”
There are still activities going on outside the Premier League to fill fans’ Saturday lunchtimes. In the Championship, Leicester will take on Blackburn Rovers from 12:30pm, with the match being broadcast live on Sky Sports.
That’s not all. In the second round of the FA Cup, National League South side Chelmsford City will host one division above Braintree Town, which will be broadcast live on TNT from 12pm.
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