In a climate where players like Idrissa Gueye can play a year in the prem and be missed by everyone and picked up for a snip makes the whole London thing pretty unimportant imo + it has its advantages like just missing out signing Sissoko for 30m

Away to Oxford tonight, probably the hardest game we have left (Millwall/Bradford at home might run them close I guess) so if we can somehow win tonight and go 11 clear of S****horpe it'd be amazing. Would take a point, they weren't too bad at BL

Since when? I never remember that being a rule.

You're right that this is unusual but it does happen, cos I remember it being at talking point ITT (or a previous version, perhaps).

I did some Googling because I wanted to know the answer. I found this link but it's 5 years old. It seems still to reflect how things are though. I think how it works is that the Premier League will do what it can to avoid scheduling Premier League matches on the same night as Champions League but won't make a commitment and will do it on odd occasions when there is no viable alternative. UEFA would prefer a commitment to never do it and will bluster about how PL should follow the rules but ultimately won't sanction them.

I would have thought that if they had to make the fixture clash, they would at least not be able to show it on TV. It bugs me a little that they don't show a Championship match when there is a full fixture list over Tuesday/Wednesday (happens fairly often as teams have to play 46 league games in a season). I always thought the reason was so that they don't clash with Champions League TV games but Man City vs. Stoke is being televised in direct competition, so maybe that is not the reason.

Overall, looks like the PL are being a little bit naughty but as long as they're not going to do it regularly, nobody is going to make a fuss.

There's a La Liga game on Wednesday as well although it doesn't fully overlap. They could have a 6 o clock kick off I suppose but I don't remember a PL midweek game ever kicking off before 1945 ever so maybe the PL have their own rule.

la lige game starts two hours before the cl kickoff. they used to not play league games at the same time as champions league football and i thought that was still the case, but i guess maybe they changed it when they split up the round of 16.

I def thought there was some sort of rule not allowing league games to kick off the same time as CL games although maybe because there is no English team playing on the Wed night it is allowed.

It's live on Sky as well that City match.

Pep obviously pulling strings again

In b4 Arsenal morale and season collapse.

I assume you're talking about next season already...

Penalty

Nah, Arse always flatter to decive ala title winners, but still bag top4 trophy, I am talking collapse beyond the normal Arsenal parameters.

you're late

Well if you are talking about just results...then maybe.

I cant remember an arsenal side playing worse than this one. Seems like players just stopped trying. 1-2 exceptions. We just fall apart when we concede and then dont wake up for 30ish minutes. Too bad cashy isnt here to witness the downfall of Granit-Coq...for some reason Coq was moved forward where he just gets owned game after game. Xhaka is just terrible, but at least he is stupid af and will get sent off every other game. Our better midfielders Elneny/Santi are injured and you wont see Ramsey/Ox playing in MF behind the rest, because it would be too attacking...or would it? I'm leaning towards that than seeing another game with Xhaka, Coq (in a more advanced role) again.

I'm saying maybe we'll ship the Fa cup and Wenger can retire with a bit of decency, but I just dont see it happening even if we play Millwall/Boro in the semi/final...let alone Chelsea/City/ManU. Spurs would find a way to cock it up even if they would play us off the pitch tho

Yeah, absurd Lester didn't snap him up to replace Kante - especially at half the cost of Ryan Mason.

All set up to watch Arse fan TV:

I wondered what cashy was up to these days.

"when i look at alexis its like looking myself in the mirror blud"

Joey Barton is up before the FA on his gambling charges today. I expect he'll get a long ban.

Just gonna echo that it's really poor scheduling to have city play the exact same time as the CL

How about you just beat Huddersfield Town the first time you get the chance instead

Yeah really unfair playing a game mid week on a Wednesday rather than having a fixture pile up later involving 4 games in 8 days or something daft like that.

The hearing has been postponed, with no new date set.

Think he's complaining that he can't watch both rather than a question of fairness.l