The wait could soon be over! That was the view of Gillingham boss Steve Evans this week when he spoke to KSN.
The Gills boss is anxious to hear the views of Boris Johnson at the weekend which could finally point the direction that the suspended League One season could – or could not – take…
“I think we’ve reached a pivotal week what with the Prime Minister’s statement coming on Sunday and where the country is heading,” he told us.
“I’m not going into Sunday with optimism that we’ll be playing football soon. That said, I’m desperately hoping that something gives, and we are, but I’m not overly hopeful. I heard one journalist the other day talk about social distancing and they said it also applied to football and that you’ve got to tackle from two metres apart, but he couldn’t have watched the game ever!”
“From that point of view there are a lot of people who equally quite rightly want football to start – I’m one of them one hundred percent – but I’ve got my reservations!”
“We’re in constant dialogue with the League Managers Association who represent us and they’re very focused and very pro-active with some really good people there and they’ve just made the points for managers and coaches to go back into work that we need assurances first and foremost – all the players are tested and free from this virus and the boys will want that for themselves and the staff.”
“Then we have to make sure that we’re free as well – I think there’s a lot of obstacles but it’s just depending what the Prime Minister says at the weekend. For me we go back, and we train, we have a two or three week build up and we get ready and then you get a player in the camp who displays the symptoms.”
“If that horrible thing happens, then I’m right in thinking that everyone who comes into contact with him will be fourteen days in isolation. So, I don’t know where it’s going and I’m not intelligent enough to be one of the people who has to make the decision.”
“We’ve still got to play some of the teams at the top end – we have to go to Rotherham, we play Fleetwood, we play Coventry, we still have to go to Wycombe – we’ve still to play teams fighting for honours and teams at the bottom fighting to avoid relegation, but we’re not the pinnacle of the League by any stage so what if our boys can’t play?”
“We haven’t even discussed the issues of player contracts that come to a conclusion at the end of next month – we’ve got a lot of them – how many clubs will go forward on the short term if both parties want to go forward in the long term when the uncertainty is there with what finances will be?”
The Gills boss then issued a chilling prediction, “There’s going to be no spectators watching football live certainly into 2021 I should think,” he said.
“I think it’s a ridiculous Idea for the Premier League to suggest neutral venues – it’s not a good one! I also read in the same article that they’re talking two or three games in the same day as it’s a very quick turnaround to sterilise the neutral venues, to sterilise the areas.”
“What happens if there’s a game between two teams, does it get completely sterile again for the next two teams coming in or one person could be infecting four teams?”
“So, from that point of view I just don’t see it! I read something from someone I know well – Paul Barber the Chief Executive of Brighton – saying that their fight to stay in the Premier League is mainly at home and the results bare that up – they’re a good side at the Amex and not so good away from home like a lot of teams in the Premier League.”
“So, I look at that and put it in neutral venues, we all know that Liverpool will go and win the games very quickly and become Champions – I think that everyone will accept that they’re Champions now. I think that if we didn’t have West Brom and Leeds looking certainties in the League below – there’s been massive investments to get them where they are as there has in League One at the likes of Coventry, Rotherham, Sunderland, Fleetwood, Peterborough.”
“I think they’ve spent close on ten million quid this season or in the last couple of years to get them where they are. They want to be fighting for that chance to be promoted, especially Posh who on paper I think don’t play any of the top ten! And I can understand that” Evans conceded, “but at the same time, we have to have a time limit on this, and I think we’ll get a better idea come Sunday!”
Some players have already expressed doubts about a return, and we asked the Gills boss what he would do if one of his squad did the same. “Certainly, if it were me, Steve Evans, I’d respect that decision. I think it’s such a horrible nasty virus that if you’re not affected by it, you’ve still watched some terrible pictures and footage on TV on what’s happening around the world as well as just here.”
“I think if a player says that “I’m not mentally right, I won’t play well” It wouldn’t just be Coronavirus; if a player ever said to me that are in that position and don’t want to play, then I would support that player as I think there’s not enough done about mental health and I would certainly never put a player in that position for sure.”