Nearly every other club in Europe outside of England gets looked after by their country’s FA before Champions League ties – especially knockout games.
Their domestic fixtures are often actually moved to the Friday – giving the team involved as much time as possible to prepare for the CL clash…
Liverpool are playing Real Madrid – away from home – might we add – which obviously requires a flight and time to get there – on the Tuesday, April 6…
We’d been due to play Arsenal on Sunday lunchtime, but rules state because of the draw seeing us play on Tuesday and not Wednesday, our fixture would be moved to Saturday…
However, instead of providing Liverpool more time to recover for Real Madrid, Sky Sports have scheduled the fixture for 8pm on the Saturday – when plenty of earlier slots were available.
It’s at the Emirates, remember, so Liverpool will have to travel back to Merseyside, then pretty much immediately fly to wherever the Champions League game is being held – given it’s not guaranteed to be the Bernabeu at this stage.
It will have really irritated Jurgen Klopp, that much we can guarantee, especially as we’re not in a position to rest any players v Arsenal, given our need to fight for top four.