Home and away.. it’s all the same without the fans
IT IS the Berlin derby tonight – Hertha against FC Union. This would be of only passing interest unless you have a love of alternative Berlin walls but given the choice of the Bundesliga or nothing – and that is the choice – all eyes are on Germany.
The league’s tip-toeing return last weekend behind closed doors confirmed that, though odd at first, football without spectators is doable.
It is up to us to adapt with the times. Do not adjust the set, just your mindset.
Anyone mounting their high horse and claiming sport in such circumstances is unwatchable isn’t going to be watching much sport this year.
If it takes place at all this summer, football in this country will have to do so in similar echo chambers.
The Bundesliga has returned on a home-and-away basis and there is a significant rump of Premier League clubs – who happen to inhabit the wrong end of the table – that are lobbying hard for the same to apply here.
Their logic – assuming the stance isn’t just a ruse to cancel the season and with it relegation – is that having neutral venues imposed on them, as the authorities want, damages the sporting integrity of the league.
In other words, going neutral diminishes their chances of gaining vital points from their remaining home games.
The fact that such a switch should conversely increase their chances of gaining points from their remaining away games seems to have passed them by.
But, regardless, what the Bundesliga’s comeback showed was that with no one inside the ground, home advantage was erased at a stroke.
There were five away wins and just one home victory. The three draws included a surprise point for bottom club Paderborn at Fortuna Dusseldorf.
In the last two rounds before lockdown, played in front of a crowd, there were just two away victories each weekend.
This is only a snapshot, of course, but the significance placed upon playing in what would be a deserted home stadium by clubs such as Brighton and Aston Villa appears to be misplaced.
Home, away, neutral or park pitch with dandelions on – the geography is extraneous. What matters is that there is no support to lift the home team, cow the away team or subconsciously to sway the officials. There is one additional knock-on effect if neutral venues are adopted – how to decide an unfinished season.
The fairest method, as the Premier League stands now, would be the weighted points per game system (WPPG), which uses a separate average of points from home and away games to calculate how many each club would accrue from their remaining unplayed fixtures.
WPPG takes care of the issue of games in hand and provides a relatively accurate guide to a club’s likely final points tally.
But if the league restarts only to be ended by another outbreak of the virus – as is eminently possible – the use of neutral venues for part of the season means the system breaks down. It is much better in this case to revert to straightforward points per game (PPG).
What does that mean at the bottom?
As the table stands, West Ham would go down under WPPG but Bournemouth would be relegated with Aston Villa and Norwich under PPG.
That position would evolve after any restart but, as ever with the calculations, every club can be relied upon only to vote with their own self-interest at heart.
AURIER: With barber
IT’S appropriate somehow that the career of La Liga’s oldest player, Aritz Aduriz, should be ended at 39 by the need for a hip replacement.