Blues boss cries foul over EFL approach to fixtures
LEE Bowyer has hit out at the EFL for making Birmingham City play three games in six days at a crucial time of the season. The head coach believes Blues have been treated unfairly having been told to play Rotherham last Sunday because of the Millers’ fixture congestion.
As a result of that their match with Nottingham Forest was pushed back from Tuesday to Wednesday, giving them a day less to prepare for Saturday’s trip to Derby.
Bowyer says Blues asked the EFL to go to Pride Park 24 hours later but the Rams refused.
He insists he understands Derby’s reasoning but objects to the fact Blues were told to move the Rotherham match, while Wayne Rooney’s men were given the choice.
Bowyer said: “Like, could you not just have moved our game back to the Sunday so at least we get a bit more rest?
“Forest (was) a massive game but so is Derby, they are around us, why should they gain because we had to move our game because of Rotherham?
That shouldn’t happen. They have gained something which wasn’t our fault.
“Will we be ready? Yes, of course we will but the way these games have been moved around doesn’t suit us and we didn’t want it, it just got forced upon us.
“I believed the Derby game should have been pushed back to the Sunday because the following game isn’t until the Saturday, so why couldn’t it have?
“We asked the EFL to move the game, they said ‘we will go to Derby’ but Derby said ‘no, we want to keep it on the Saturday’.
“But no-one came to us for the Rotherham game and said ‘do you mind moving it to the Sunday?’ Noone asked us, we got told ‘your game now is on the Sunday’.
“We got told Forest is now getting moved to Wednesday and that ‘we will now ask Derby if they want to move’.
“We get told twice but then they get asked.
“Tell me how that works.
“Why can’t they (EFL) say ‘okay, fair enough, you have had two games pushed back, we are going to move this one back, Derby unlucky, we are moving it back, you are gaining an advantage because you play Tuesday, they play Wednesday’?
“It can’t work one way but not the other, it has to be fair across the board.
“I understand why Derby said ‘no’. I would have said ‘no’ if I had got the choice because everyone wants an advantage.
“I don’t blame Derby, of course I don’t. If the EFL had said to us ‘can you move your Saturday game against Rotherham to the Sunday’, of course I would have said ‘no’.
“I think it should have been taken out of Derby’s hands like it was taken out of our hands.
“We didn’t get options, we got told and that’s the thing I don’t like.”