Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier has reacted angrily to the Premier League's decision not to move Tuesday's game with Town. Houllier had earlier accused the FA of treating his players "like horses" as they have four games to play in eight days.
The Liverpool manager said: "This is an unfair ruling which favours
Ipswich. It's a very unfair situation. They obviously want Ipswich to
be in the Champions' League rather than Liverpool. They say they care about English clubs in Europe but it appears they are doing everything against that and don't care about our UEFA Cup tie."
He continued: "We are disappointed by the fact they want us to play on April 10th at Portman Road. My message is that we will deal with the challenge positively."
At the end of last week Houllier, Assistant Manager Phil Thompson and Chief Executive Rick Parry went to see the FA to explain the situation. Parry said after hearing the decision: "Our reaction is that we just have to get on with it. We felt we had a good meeting with the League on Friday and thought we presented a reasonable argument. We also didn't feel that we were asking for anything that was impossible. We didn't, for example, ask for the season to be extended and we always realised that the success we are having this season was going to present problems."
This is the same Rick Parry who seemed to see things slightly differently when he was at the Premier League and Manchester United were moaning about fixture congestion.
It seems Liverpool did indeed ask for the game to be played in the week beginning April 23rd, a week when Ireland, Iceland and Holland all have games. It seems incredible that Liverpool should have expected either Town to play without possibly Matt Holland, Hermann Hreidarsson and/or Martijn Reuser, or their national teams to do without them for important World Cup games. A club a bit too big for its boots perhaps?
Coventry's Moroccan star Moustapha Hadji will be suspended for the Sky Blues game against the Blues. Hadji was sent off at the weekend in Coventry's game against Derby at the weekend.
He also misses the games against Manchester United and Sunderland which must please Conventry fans.