Soccer: Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish believes the scheduling of tomorrow's Carling Cup quarter-final is "irresponsible". The Scot was disappointed when he discovered his side would have to play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge two days after yesterday's league match at home to Manchester City.
Liverpool held discussions with the Premier League, Football League and Sky television in an attempt to get one of the games moved but it was to no avail.
The Premier League said it was reluctant to bring the league match forward because of concerns over a major inconvenience to fans at short notice.
Also the Metropolitan Police could not sanction a move to Wednesday because of a Trades Union Congress rally taking place in central London that day and Tottenham’s Europa League game at home to PAOK Salonika.
Dalglish is likely to make a number of changes for their second trip to Chelsea in just over a week — having won 2-1 the weekend before last — but that has not stopped him speaking out again about the timing.
"Forty-eight hours is a bit irresponsible for the people who've organised the dates of the matches. It's not just us, it's Man City," he told www.liverpoolfc.tv. "To ask any team or any players to play two games of high intensity in 48 hours is a bit of a joke.
“I don’t know why the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association) don’t come in and say something about it — it’s their players. For me it’s difficult to understand why they don’t come out and say something. Or do they agree with it?
“We know we’ve got to accept it although we don’t agree with it, and it won’t affect the application or give us an excuse. There’ll be one or two bumps and bruises I would have thought, and maybe one or two missing, but we have a strong squad and we’ve made changes in other Carling Cup matches.
“It will be a late shout because we have to give everyone the best possible opportunity to recover.
“We’ve sold out our tickets for the match, we know what’s expected, the players know what’s expected of them, so all we can do is try our best and see what happens.”
Chelsea played on Saturday so they have had an extra day to recover.
Dalglish believes Andre Villas-Boas will keep disruptions to his side down to a minimum.
“I don’t expect Chelsea to have to make changes,” he added. “He (Villas-Boas) has said he’ll use the competition to try to develop three young players he has that he likes, so I suppose those three will play.”
