The Premier League has warned supporters that matches involving Arsenal and Manchester City in March may need to be moved again after UEFA declined to provide firm scheduling for the Champions League knockout stage. The top flight told fans on Tuesday that these two fixtures “are subject to change.” <\/p>\n
UEFA are not compelled to announce any dates or times for their matches until after Friday\u2019s draw, but the Premier League added: “Unfortunately, UEFA has not been able to provide any guarantees on its scheduling ahead of the draw. As a result, the Premier League now faces the possibility of re-scheduling its fixtures at even shorter notice, at the inconvenience of supporters and clubs. The Premier League will continue its regular dialogue with UEFA over fixture scheduling.” <\/p>\n
Calendar adjustments are already being mapped. BBC Sport\u2019s Dale Johnson has reported that Arsenal\u2019s home match with Everton looks set to move from Sunday, March 15 to Saturday, March 14. That stems from Liverpool hosting Tottenham on Sunday, March 15, a fixture described as the marquee game of the weekend which cannot be moved. Liverpool and Spurs are therefore expected to play their Champions League second legs on Wednesday, March 18, which forces Arsenal\u2019s European second leg onto Tuesday, March 17 and the Everton game onto Saturday, March 14. <\/p>\n
Manchester City face a similar timing squeeze. City can play West Ham at lunchtime on Saturday, March 14 only if their Champions League first leg is placed on Tuesday, March 10. If UEFA puts City in the Wednesday slot broadcasters will seek an even split of Premier League teams across both midweek dates and City\u2019s trip to West Ham would likely be shifted to the evening 8 p.m. window. <\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola has previously complained about congested continental schedules: \u201cAlways they put the toughest schedules for the European teams in the important stages,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m not complaining because we had incredible success dealing with this calendar.\u201d He also said: \u201cThe broadcasters decide. There are leagues that play on the Friday before the Champions League. They don\u2019t ask me when it\u2019s better to play to have one more day. It has always been like that. It\u2019s no surprise when I see the calendar. It is what it is. Here, the Premier League is much more important than the other competitions.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fixture notes reproduced from published schedules show Arsenal and City with FA Cup and predicted Champions League dates before the rearranged league ties in mid-March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Premier League warns March fixtures for Arsenal and Manchester City may be moved at short notice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,238,172],"tags":[1162,1047],"class_list":["post-7082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}