Match Threads Leyton Orient vs Spurs - 3rd Round Carabao Cup

[Robbiepope]

I think some of the criticism of Orient is fair but I would point out that before COVID they make around a 1 - 1.5 million loss a year , with COVID they are projecting a 2.5 million loss. Who is going to stump up the cash for comprehensive testing because the lower clubs simply can’t afford it. If owners start to buckle which is definitely possible there will be a firestorm for lower / non league clubs.

 

[spursfast]

likely by the weekend...with expending 4th round coming up

they would have to inform the club third round/4th as thats next tueday , they aint goin to tell us monday

 

[JeremyPaxton]

It’s pathetic that EFL won’t enforce their own rules around covid because Orient’s Chairman wants his money. During a public health emergency if 10 of you are unwell it’s your societal duty to get a *FREE* test and self-isolate until you get the results - not to go and play Mansfield town.
The O’s Chairman saying that they could keep playing when they’re sick is saying it’s ok to put their employer’s financial interests ahead of the lives and wellbeing of other people.

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

I think some of the criticism of Orient is fair but I would point out that before COVID they make around a 1 - 1.5 million loss a year , with COVID they are projecting a 2.5 million loss. Who is going to stump up the cash for comprehensive testing because the lower clubs simply can’t afford it. If owners start to buckle which is definitely possible there will be a firestorm for lower / non league clubs.

The FA need to step in along with the Premier League and help fund testing. Its so short sighted not to because if it spreads like wildfire in the lower leagues football will shut down again.

 

[fridgemagnet]

I think some of the criticism of Orient is fair but I would point out that before COVID they make around a 1 - 1.5 million loss a year , with COVID they are projecting a 2.5 million loss. Who is going to stump up the cash for comprehensive testing because the lower clubs simply can’t afford it. If owners start to buckle which is definitely possible there will be a firestorm for lower / non league clubs.

A certain PL club moving onto their doorstep didn't help that.

 

[Hakkz]

What a major fuck up. I cant see why this should be postponed.

 

[Nerine]

Are these tests prohibitively expensive??

 

[mil1lion]

We're too nice, need to be ****s to them, Jose will not be happy

 

[peterballb]

Lots of fingers to point around.

Leyton Orient, IMO, should be protecting their players, staff, family community. Tests are not free. So there's that. Their Tier does not mandate the testing. These are all issues. I cannot, for the life of me, in the time of a highly contagious pandemic, understand how it is possible to allow sports to proceed where physical distancing cannot be maintained, without daily testing. Whatever the level. EFL should have mandated it and, where there isn't the financial ability, EFL should be covering the costs.

Leyton Orient's staff needs to do some spraining, too. How can you have a bug going through a team, while there is a global pandemic, and not have them all tested just to be safe? First off, let's say they believed the bug was the flu. Add covid to the flu and you increase the likelihood of really bad outcomes. Their job is the best interests of the team/player. Huge failure there.

If there is not reliable, consistent testing, teams should not be playing. Yes, the players will likely be ok. What about their parents, kids, friends? It's a virus. It doesn't care. We should all be doing better. No reason we cannot have sports and be in the stands. Get the transmission rate way down, have availability of daily tests and we can go back to life, close to, as it was pre-covid.

 

[JeremyPaxton]

Are these tests prohibitively expensive??

Their players were largely symptomatic- at that point it’s free on the NHS. But instead of getting a test they all played Mansfield and their manager praised their toughness. Morons.
If you have no symptoms It’s £100 per test (per person) from private providers.

 

[peterballb]

I suspect as the free tests have a turnaround time. The rapid tests (which have higher false positives and negatives - thus should be done daily) are not available to the general public (at least not here in North America) and are not free. And yes, private testing (even with wait times) where asymptomatic and no covid contact, is required to be paid for by the person requesting the test.

And wholly concur that it is selfish (moronic) to play a game, potentially compromising others, when your tough players are showing signs of illness. They should have been tested and required to self-isolate until the negative response comes back or for 2 weeks minimum if positive, just as any one of the balance of the public would be expected to do.

Bet Mansfield will be some kind of pissed if their players now test positive.

 

[DJS]

I think the attitude shown by Orient towards COVID and also that of the EPL just highlights the general attitude of far too many people and their laxness towards the virus, which is why it is on the rise again.

A lot of people are just stupid really and it’s really frustrating for those of us who have been super cautious and are still basically stuck inside.

 

[Trotter]

It’s pathetic that EFL won’t enforce their own rules around covid because Orient’s Chairman wants his money. During a public health emergency if 10 of you are unwell it’s your societal duty to get a *FREE* test and self-isolate until you get the results - not to go and play Mansfield town.
The O’s Chairman saying that they could keep playing when they’re sick is saying it’s ok to put their employer’s financial interests ahead of the lives and wellbeing of other people.

You don't know enough details to know if they broke the rules though, so you can't say that, and certainly they could not act before a hearing is convened which could take up to a month or so to arrange, which given the timescales of the rounds is issue.

I think by all accounts it is a gimme that they had a team available to play us, so unless you were party to discussions between PHE, Orient, EFL and Spurs you don't know if any EFL rules were broken at all.
PHE may well have said the team they had available, which had apparently been in separate bubble to first team (yes I am talking about an Under 18 team) were clear to play, and Orient could have given up home advantage to us, maybe put Portakabin changing rooms in and/or deep cleaned Brisbane Road, or even rented another teams ground to play the fixture, meaning no rules have been broken at all, and maybe it was us that was uncomfortable and not wanting to play in those circumstances.

What I believe will end up happening is if Chelsea lose to Barnsley tomorrow, Thursday they will announce we play Orient on Tuesday,
If we lose to Shkendija on Thursday, then we would play Orient on Tuesday.
However if both us and Chelsea get through I believe we end up playing Chelsea on Tuesday, and Orient will be paid some compensation to accept a forfeit, but this wouldn't get announced until Friday, which would allow the competition to continue.
Reason being they could fit a game in between us and Barnsley down the line (even if we have to play Sunday Tuesday Thursday one week), but fitting a game in between us and Chelsea apart from next Tuesday is nigh on impossible given both sides schedules if we reach the Group stages of Europa League.

 

[LeSoupeKitchen]

I think the attitude shown by Orient towards COVID and also that of the EPL just highlights the general attitude of far too many people and their laxness towards the virus, which is why it is on the rise again.

A lot of people are just stupid really and it’s really frustrating for those of us who have been super cautious and are still basically stuck inside.

Agree. They were symptomatic, in the public spotlight, and have a whole team of medics on their staff. And still they were oblivious to the virus.

So I don't hold out much hope for the average person to take it seriously.

 

[degoose]

i listened to the bbc football daily when the O's chairman was on and when i heard the below i had to do a double take and make sure i heard that correctly. I was shocked. I get the club needs the cash but he is stating that next time he is more than willing to let people get infected for cash, so that would not just be the O's players but say the spurs players, staff, families and so on. I like the club but the chairman is a dick.

"If I was doing this again I would not do the testing," Orient chairman Mark Travis told BBC Radio 5 Live.
"This is an incentive not to test and that is bad for football and bad for health and safety."

 

[Newbops]

The onus needs to be on the richer clubs funding the tests lower down the league. I don’t really fault the O’s here as the problem really sits with the EFL. None of this is as bad as West Ham’s behaviour last night of waiting until after kickoff to announce that some of their team and manager tested positive - conveniently too late for the game to be forfeited. Following Orients example of shutting the ground down would have been the right thing to do as there is no way they could have been confident that no other players or staff had got it since being tested or that the stadium was Covid safe

 

[Cornpattbuck]

i listened to the bbc football daily when the O's chairman was on and when i heard the below i had to do a double take and make sure i heard that correctly. I was shocked. I get the club needs the cash but he is stating that next time he is more than willing to let people get infected for cash, so that would not just be the O's players but say the spurs players, staff, families and so on. I like the club but the chairman is a dick.

"If I was doing this again I would not do the testing," Orient chairman Mark Travis told BBC Radio 5 Live.
"This is an incentive not to test and that is bad for football and bad for health and safety."

He's not coming out of this at all well but seems to be doubling down hard.

Even more so now that people know the club went ahead with a game on the weekend when most of their players were struggling with a "bug".

I think most of us here have a soft spot for Orient but FFS. ??‍

 

[Matthew]

they've just tweeted that spurs fans have helped raise 20k for their charity.

 

[buckley]

I am sorry to say that in my opinion there are too many professional clubs . It is the way of the world the big beat the small .
What I am going to say will be very unpopular but in my opinion some of these clubs need to amalgamate.
For instance Bristol rovers and city as one club in a fair size city they could be in the premier league but alone they are vulnerable .
The ludicrous situation of the two clubs in Dundee when if they combined the affect could be tremendous .
I get the argument that fans would not accept it but I believe that in time it would be better for a large amount of small clubs to amalgamate .
Two teams two two stadiums and all the costs involved and two sets of management / players / etc to me no matter how distasteful it makes sense . If you cannot put up with combining clubs at least share stadiums and lets say Dundee whose stadiums are yards apart well if you sell one of the stadiums to developers and share the cost of one stadium that would help finances .
If two of the biggest clubs in the world found a way to share a stadium then some of these small clubs should bite the bullet the clubs I am talking about are Milan and Inter Milan . The small clubs waiting for handouts from bigger clubs are not viable and should find ways to stand on their own feet . As I say its a view that will be very very unpopular but in my view the way forward

 

[Tucker]

I am sorry to say that in my opinion there are too many professional clubs .

I don’t agree with merging clubs etc, but you are right, there are too many professional clubs, and too many of the, over spend. People like to wax lyrical about the ”football pyramid.” And how the premier league should help them because they depend on the lower league clubs. It’s a load of romantic nonsense. Every year we see clubs go under, or have near misses of going out of business. Every year there’s a saga where a lower league club simply can’t pay their players wages.

The league really should reconsider some of the rules for league 2 clubs, they shouldn’t have to be fully professional, and they should be able to use artificial pitches. That would really help some of the smaller clubs. There’s no need for these tiny clubs to be fully professional. They also need to more strictly enforce FFP to ensure the chairmen don’t do stupid things like hiring Sol Campbell on mega wages.

Until the FA & EFL wake up and smell the coffee there will be more and more Burys and Macclesfields. It’s not the fault of the premier league that these clubs are going under, and it’s not the premier leagues responsibility to bail them out either.