Copyright Yardbarker
Liverpool haven’t had the most ideal of preparations for tonight’s Champions League clash against Eintracht Frankfurt, to put it mildly. With the pressure for a positive result growing ever more intense after a run of four straight defeats, Arne Slot and his squad certainly could’ve done without the four-hour delay to their flight to Germany on Tuesday afternoon, due to technical issues with the plane on which they were scheduled to travel. It meant that they didn’t leave Merseyside until 8pm last night, a full 90 minutes after the customary pre-match media duties were due to take place, with the press conference duly being cancelled. Will Liverpool be fined by UEFA for missing the press conference? As per Liverpool Echo, the club were technically in breach of Article 48 of UEFA’s regulations for the Champions League, which states: ‘The clubs must arrange for their teams to arrive on-site by the evening before the match concerned at the latest, and in time to fulfil their media obligations the day before the match.’ By not meeting that obligation, LFC could be at risk of receiving a fine from European football’s governing body, with the final decision to be taken by a disciplinary group should the organisation’s match delegate include the incident in their report. However, as Liverpool aren’t at fault for the technical difficulties which affected their travel plans, it’s understood that a UEFA sanction is unlikely. Liverpool not at fault for flight delay It’s only right that the Merseysiders won’t be punished for the press conference no-show, as zero blame can be attached to them for the delay to their flight to Germany, and obviously the safety of every person making the trip supersedes everything else in terms of importance. Thankfully, it looks as though UEFA will forego the fine print of the rulebook and apply common sense. The monetary value of any potential fine would be loose change for LFC, but it’s the principle which matters in this case. The four-hour delay was far from ideal for Slot and his players, particularly when things have been going so badly on the pitch, although the head coach has been quick to insist that it can’t be used as an excuse if the losing run continues tonight (liverpoolfc.com). The good news is that Liverpool have made it to Frankfurt with all of today to prepare for a match against an Eintracht side who’ve been even more cavalier than the Reds this season, with their 10 games seeing them score 30 goals and concede 24. The latter statistic has led to their coach Dino Toppmoller confirming a change of goalkeeper for this game. From an LFC perspective, all we want is a change of fortunes for our team and an injection of much-needed positivity after a dreadful four-week slump. You can watch Slot’s full post-Manchester United press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:
