Well, that didn’t take long. One day after it was revealed that the Premier League had gotten involved in potentially moving the date of Aston Villa’s final home match of the season against Tottenham Hotspur, it’s now become official — despite Villa’s protestations, the match has been moved from Sunday, May 18 to Friday, May 16.
The match was moved at Spurs’ request so that they could have more time to prepare for the Europa League final on Wednesday, May 21 in Bilbao, Spain. Tottenham had asked Villa (nicely) to reschedule the match so that, should they qualify for the final, they would have the same amount of time to prepare as their assumed opponent, Manchester United. Tottenham had initially requested that the match be moved to Thursday evening, May 15.
Villa had declined, arguing that there was “no precedent” to move league matches for clubs participating in European competition, and that doing so would create a burden for them as they were also trying to qualify for a European place through league position. Villa also noted numerous fan activities targeting families that would be less possible if the match were moved to Friday evening.
However, the Premier League has stepped in and ordered the match to be moved, regardless of whether Spurs make the final or not.
Naturally, Villa fans on social media are FURIOUS with the decision. I suppose if the roles were reversed and we were in Villa’s situation, asked to reschedule a home match to accommodate the team currently 16th in the table we’d be pretty peeved too. But failure to do so would give United a significant advantage in preparation — the Europa League final being on a Wednesday night would mean Spurs would have a minimal amount of time to get to Spain, train, and prepare for the match in comparison to United. Now the playing field is level, though Villa might think otherwise.