After the November international break, Liverpool will play Manchester City at 12:30 on a Saturday. Following the match against Wolves last month and the Merseyside derby next weekend, the Reds will play all three of their games in the same timeslot following international fixtures. Since Jurgen Klopp took over in 2015, there have been a total of 14 12:30 kickoffs, which is eight more than any other Premier League club, according to The Times journalist Paul Joyce. This has, unsurprisingly, increased fan ire on X, who believe that the scheduling has been unfair to the Reds. While there is no point in getting into conspiracy theories, the reality is that the Reds are receiving a very bad deal.
The squad has very little time to rest and prepare for their game because players are flying in from all over the world after serving on international duty and the game is on a Saturday lunchtime. It’s even harder to accept that it happened three times in a row during the same season, with two of those games being extremely high-profile contests. Of course, it’s important to note that Everton and Manchester City deal with the same challenges, leveling the playing field. However, having so little time to prepare for a game away at the Etihad puts Jurgen Klopp’s team in danger of losing.
The past fifteen years have been spent by David reporting on football. He began as an intern at Snack Media before transitioning into a freelancer and working on numerous sites. He started working as a content writer for National World’s Football News Network at the beginning of 2023.
