Everton fans’ fireworks could force Crystal Palace to fly to Merseyside on day of game
Crystal Palace may choose to fly to Merseyside on Thursday (19 May) to face Everton in an attempt to avoid disruption to their preparation.
According to the Daily Mail, Patrick Vieira is extremely keen not to have his players woken up in the middle of the night the day before the game at Goodison Park by Toffees supporters letting off fireworks near their hotel, as has happened before the games against Chelsea and Brentford.
Initially, it was suggested that they could stay in a hotel outside of Merseyside, potentially Manchester, but the club are now making arrangements for the team to fly from London to Liverpool on Thursday instead.
The Eagles could leave it until late afternoon to arrive in the North West for the evening kick-off but their travel plans could also be determined by the weather both in the capital and Liverpool.
Supporters have been doing this to try and give Everton an advantage for the following day’s game and it worked against Chelsea but Brentford still headed back to London with three points despite the night-time distractions.
Doable
What was ever wrong with a long coach journey on the day of a game?
Especially with this game being a late kick-off, there is no reason why the Eagles couldn’t all hop on the team bus and travel on the day of the game anyway rather than the usual of flying for half an hour to stay in a hotel.
Admittedly, the fans shouldn’t really be doing these kinds of things and teams should be able to go through their normal preparations, no matter how irrelevant, as they usually would.
But this plague of teams flying nonsensical distances for games the day before and getting booked into a hotel is ridiculous and some even stay in accommodation before home games too.
You can’t imagine the Toffees jumping on a place before an away trip to Anfield for the Merseyside derby and the truth is that there are very few games in which a hotel would be needed the night before a game – we’re talking Plymouth away at Carlisle kinds of mileage.
In other Everton news, the Toffees are in a three-horse race to sign this defender from turkey who has a £19.5million release clause.
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