Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
EU DON’T CARE
Everton boss furious at fixture scheduling
RONALD KOEMAN claims Everton will give Europe their best shot – despite getting no help from the Premier League.
Koeman suspects Premier League bosses “don’t care enough” about English teams performing well in Europe.
He is unimpressed that tonight’s play-off second leg at Hajduk Split is sandwiched between last Monday’s trip to Manchester City and Sunday’s 1.30pm clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues boss echoed the complaints last season of Jose Mourinho, who moaned about Premier League fixtures, saying: “Maybe they don’t care enough about European football.
“I totally agreed with Jose about what happened to Manchester United last season. The same happened this week, but we know the television money decides a lot.
“It’s difficult to play on Thursday when we played last Monday. We couldn’t have played on Saturday but we could have played on
Sunday. It’s the commercial side of football and that makes it more difficult.”
Despite Everton’s gruelling schedule, Koeman vowed to play a strong team tonight because Everton’s tradition in
Europe means he has to take the competiseriously.
The Dutchman says he will not rest players in the Europa League even though he knows it could hurt their top-four chances.
“It’s difficult to compete with the strongest teams in the Premier League with or without European football,” said Koeman, who could hand record £45million signing Gylfi Sigurdsson his full debut.
“We know European football makes it even tougher, but that’s what we like to have.” tion