Last weekend’s EPL games had to be postponed following the death of the Queen and now the authorities are really struggling to avoid a fixture congestion.
All the Premier League games from the previous weekend have been cancelled as a mark of respect and to add to this, three games from the next gameweek have also been postponed due to the lack of police personnel.
Teams like Man United, Chelsea and Liverpool won’t be playing this weekend either and this is a major problem for them because all three teams have European obligations as well.
Now, all the clubs are pondering how they will finish their games in hand because we have the World Cup in the middle of the season and then there’s no free until the weekend of January 17 in the EPL.
As per a report in the Daily Mail, the authorities are now thinking of scrapping the third and fourth round replays of the FA Cup in order to accommodate all these postponed games.
Replays had been scrapped in the previous two seasons due to fixture congestion and COVID and it seems like this is the only way out this time around as well.
Most of the teams were not in favour of cancelling another gameweek due to the worry of backlogs but after speaking with the respective authorities, the EPL had no other option but to cancel three matches.
The third round of the FA Cup is scheduled for the weekend of January 7 and the fourth round will be played on the weekend of January 28.
Usually, replays are played in the midweek just after the match so if these replays are cancelled then the postponed EPL matches can be played during this time frame.
This coming weekend, the EPL is going to resume barring the Man United vs Leeds tie, the Brighton vs Palace tie and the high-profile Chelsea vs Liverpool encounter at Stamford Bridge.
