Arsenal face fixture chaos with ‘no obvious date’ to play crunch Carabao Cup quarter-final vs Crystal Palace
ARSENAL are facing a nightmare fixture pile up in December after being drawn against Crystal Palace in the League Cup.
Mikel Arteta‘s side progressed into the quarter-finals of the competition after beating Preston 3-0 on Wednesday.
However, that is set to cause club chiefs a huge headache due to a major scheduling issue involving them and the women’s team.
The Emirates tie against Crystal Palace is due to be played on either Tuesday 17 or Wednesday 18 in December.
It came with Palace being due to play Brighton on Monday, December 16, though this fixture has since been moved to Sunday at 2pm with Bournemouth v West Ham now filling the Monday evening slot.
Holding the clash on Wednesday is not possible due to Arsenal Women facing Bayern Munich in the Champions League at the Emirates.
Logically this would leave Thursday as the obvious solution.
However, the two-day turnaround is far from ideal, with Palace due to host Arsenal on Saturday, December 21 in the evening clash, also leaving Friday out of the question.
It would be possible to host the Palace game on Wednesday, December 18 if the women’s game could be moved.
Arsenal Women play all of their European home games and eight of their 11 home games in the Women’s Super League at the Emirates, with tickets for the Bayern game on sale since September 28.
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But Boreham Wood’s Meadow Park, where the women’s team used to play their home games, does not meet Uefa stadium regulations.
However, one possible solution could be Arsenal agreeing to a stunning venue swap with Palace.
There has been a precedent in the League Cup this season to move fixtures to another stadium.
Newcastle’s third round fixture with Wimbledon was switched from Plough Lane to St. James’ Park after floods caused a sinkhole to form in the middle of the pitch.
Manchester City faced a similar problem to Arsenal earlier this season when they faced Watford in the third round after playing their title rivals in the league the weekend before.
Pep Guardiola’s side were offered the chance to play away at Vicarage Road or switch dates to Tuesday or Thursday, which left them with less of a turnaround for either the League Cup game or Prem clash.
They ultimately opted to play on the Tuesday just 48 hours after their 2-2 draw with Arsenal, and emerged with a 2-1 win over Watford at the Etihad.
Speaking of the dilemma at the time, Guardiola said: “I prefer to play at home than go to London because this way our fans can watch this lovely, adorable team at home.
“That’s why I decided to play on Tuesday. If we had said Thursday we wouldn’t have time to recover to go to Newcastle.
“Hopefully we can select two teams and be fit and have no injuries but everyone knows the schedule will be tight this season.”
On fixture congestion, he had previously said: “The week is seven days. We cannot create eight days a week or nine days a week.”
It means the EFL could, based on precedent, offer Arteta’s side the chance to swap the venue of the League Cup clash from the Emirates to Selhurst Park to allow it to then be played on Wednesday and give Arsenal appropriate rest days between their league games.
The ultimate decision over the date of the game is in the hands of the EFL.
SunSport have contacted the EFL for comment on the matter.