1. The ever-changing application of VAR and rules. The use of VAR has always been a controversy with marginal offside and handball decisions. What makes it worse is to keep changing the rules in the middle of the season. Now we often see accidental handballs not given, which would have definitely been caught earlier in the same season. And suddenly we now have 9 substitutes on the bench and an extra substitution for head injury.
2. Occassional home advantage. As we all know fans have a certain psychological impact to the players on the pitch. While some fixtures were played behind closed doors, some allowed thousands of fans to cheer for the home team. It's all down to luck if you could have a home advantage when you have an important fixture or rival to play.
3. Postponement of games due to COVID-19. Before the season started, guideline issued by the Premier League had suggested that any team that could field a lineup of 14 players (including U23) would be forced to play despite an outbreak in the team. However in December, we saw games (Villa vs Newcastle and Everton vs City) postponed even when the affected teams had more than enough players to play.
I fully understand it's now a difficult time and health always comes first. But guidelines should be consistent and strictly adhered to as much as possible. Changing the rules in the middle of an ongoing campaign creates a huge unfairness to certain teams, especially smaller clubs. Football is an important entertainment during this pandemic, but the integrity of the competition should not be compromised.
2. Occassional home advantage. As we all know fans have a certain psychological impact to the players on the pitch. While some fixtures were played behind closed doors, some allowed thousands of fans to cheer for the home team. It's all down to luck if you could have a home advantage when you have an important fixture or rival to play.
3. Postponement of games due to COVID-19. Before the season started, guideline issued by the Premier League had suggested that any team that could field a lineup of 14 players (including U23) would be forced to play despite an outbreak in the team. However in December, we saw games (Villa vs Newcastle and Everton vs City) postponed even when the affected teams had more than enough players to play.
I fully understand it's now a difficult time and health always comes first. But guidelines should be consistent and strictly adhered to as much as possible. Changing the rules in the middle of an ongoing campaign creates a huge unfairness to certain teams, especially smaller clubs. Football is an important entertainment during this pandemic, but the integrity of the competition should not be compromised.