“I couldn’t even believe they were considering this,” Oliver Glasner said on Friday, and he had a point.
The smart money is that the quarter-final will now take place on Tuesday December 23 with the final call made by the Football League (EFL), the League Cup’s organisers. A December 23 date means both sets of players will have to play twice in 48 hours – Arsenal are also scheduled to be in action on December 21 at Everton.
Arsenal would prefer the tie to be played when it is currently planned, on December 16, a free midweek for them. Moving it to December 23 it will mean they face six games in 19 days. Arsenal already have grievances on this front. They played nine games in January last season and among the casualties was Kai Havertz who, despite one comeback, is still not fit.
Fixture congestion is not a new phenomenon. Manchester United played four league games in eight days towards the end of the 1991-92 season, winning just one and torpedoing their title push. A random plunge into the archive sees Liverpool playing five games in 11 days in April 1966 – an Anfield title-winning season – including both legs of a Cup Winners’ Cup tie against Celtic. Easter was then a notoriously congested period when teams often played on successive days.
A different time and different issues: the greater influence of the weather, a 22-team top-flight, and a rush to finish the season with the FA Cup final. But in the modern era, Palace and Arsenal’s problem tells us the calendar is at breaking point. There is no more space. For leading clubs like Arsenal, the Champions League has expanded into January. For Palace, on a historic first season in Europe, there is the discovery that success comes at a significant price.
