Man Utd & Man City to Miss Opening Weekend of New Premier League Season
By Tom Gott
Manchester United and Manchester City will both miss the opening round of fixtures for the new Premier League season to give their players enough time to fully recover from a hectic end to the current campaign.
United and City were eliminated from the Europa League and Champions League respectively in the last few days, meaning their 2019/20 seasons have finally come to a close nearly three months after they were supposed to.
With the new season set to start on September 12, there were concerns that the two sides would be risking their players' health by trying to get ready in time for that date, but The Telegraph have revealed that both City and United will be given an extra week to recover.
They will both miss the opening weekend and will instead get their campaigns underway in matchweek two.
Had either advanced further in Europe, they were facing the prospect of missing even more games, while there was also the fear that competing in the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup would cripple the fixture list even more.
There had been a suggestion that City and United could face off in a Manchester derby on September 17 to get them up to speed with the rest of the league as soon as possible, but that is not thought to be under consideration anymore.
United and City will now only need to miss one game, but one side who won't have that luxury are Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Wolves' season came to an end with their own European elimination on August 11, and the Daily Mail note that they appealed to the Premier League to grant both them and Chelsea an extra week of recovery, but their request was knocked back.
The plan has always been to give teams a 30-day break and the Premier League are adamant that there should be no exceptions as they try and restore some normality to the footballing world.