Crystal Palace have asked the Premier League to move their fixture at Leeds on Sunday 21 December to the previous day to allow them more time to prepare for their rescheduled Carabao Cup quarter-final against Arsenal.
Mikel Arteta revealed on Monday that Arsenal had requested their game at Everton on that Sunday be moved to Saturday 20 December after the EFL pushed back the last‑eight tie at the Emirates Stadium to two days before Christmas.
Palace, who were charged by the Football Association on Wednesday with misconduct after their fans held up a graphic banner about the Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, during the teams’ 1-1 draw in August, did not want the tie on the original 16 December date because they would have had less time than Arsenal to prepare and faced having to play five matches in 11 days.
Oliver Glasner, the Palace manager, said on Wednesday that the club had made a request to move the Leeds game even though it would mean they face the Finnish side KuPS at Selhurst Park in the Conference League about 48 hours earlier. Palace face two games in three days either way and apparently are prioritising the Carabao Cup.
“We’re trying to move the Leeds game forwards to Saturday so that we have two days between these games,” Glasner said with reference to the Arsenal tie. “Let’s see. We didn’t get a response until now from the Premier League, so just to have the same situation as Arsenal if their game is moved.”
Glasner, preparing for Thursdaytonight’s Conference League match at home against the Dutch side AZ, said: “I think I’m always talking about making mistakes as part of development, and I think the EFL and Premier League didn’t solve this problem before the start of the season. They will learn from it and I’m pretty sure that next year they will have the solution before the start of the season.”
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The EFL blamed the expanded European schedules for “undermining” the reputation of the competition when it confirmed that the quarter-final would take place a week later than the other three ties, and called the decision “unavoidable”.
Palace must decide by Tuesday whether to contest the FA’s charge of misconduct and failing “to ensure its spectators and/or supporters (and anyone purporting to be supporters or followers) didn’t behave in an improper, offensive, abusive, insulting and/or provocative way during the fixture”. If they contest the charge, it would be heard by an independent panel. It is not certain what punishment they could receive given there have not been many precedents.
The banner, unveiled just before kick-off at Selhurst Park by a group of Palace supporters in the Holmesdale End and made a series of unsubstantiated allegations about Marinakis, stemmed from a summer of tension between the two clubs that ended with Forest being promoted to the Europa League at the FA Cup winners’ expense.
Palace were excluded from the competition owing to the previous co-owner John Textor holding a controlling interest in Lyon, who also qualified. Uefa’s decision to rule that Textor held a controlling interest in both clubs, meaning they could not both play in the Europa League, occurred only after a drawn-out saga, and Marinakis had reportedly written to the governing body to raise concerns about Palace’s ownership.
