I don’t like Mondays

Question: What's worse than seeing your team score a ‘goal’, then waiting as the VAR checks it and then - a few minutes later – disallows it for an infringement no one saw and that apparently happened three minutes earlier?

Answer: Seeing your team score a ‘goal’, then waiting as the VAR checks it and then - a few minutes later - disallows it for an infringement no one saw and that apparently happened three minutes earlier…on a Monday night.

Everton fans have declared it the ‘final straw’ now that their upcoming home game against Manchester City has become their eighth this season to be moved to the Monday at 8pm slot (by contrast, just three of their games at the Hill Dick Stadium have kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday).

They have said it damages supporter accessibility, the matchday experience and long-term engagement. What ‘the last straw’ means in reality though is anyone’s guess. The fans have not said if they’ll be boycotting the game, or protesting, as far as I’ve read but some are probably mindful that if they do leave their seat unused for the night, the club might fill it with someone else and decide they like their money better.

The limit for moving a team’s matches is supposed to be a maximum of five games. But Manchester United have also had eight matches moved to either Friday or Monday nights, while West Ham and Leeds currently sit on seven and six respectively.

There are reasons. Being a bit crap is clearly one of them. Prolonged participation in European competitions, and the EFL Cup, are two ways to reduce the number of games being moved to ungodly nights and times. No wonder Ruben Amorim hid in that Grimsby Town dugout; he’d just condemned the fans to another three Monday nights under the lights.

Consider too that treble-chasing Arsenal have played no games on a Friday or Monday this season.

But before anyone gets carried away, being crap is far from a fool-proof method. For the other club to avoid Freaky Fridays and Manic Mondays altogether are Spurs.

The Sky At Night

Sky Sports, who have the power given they’ve paid for 4/5 of the live broadcast matches, and the Premier League have not only mis-read the room when it comes to fan sentiment but also refused to elaborate fully on why when asked.

But that’s hardly a shock given that, this week, after a poll of 8,000 fans by the FSA showed that 75% of them opposed VAR, the Premier League’s interpretation of fans’ ire was that they ‘are in favour but want to improve it’. In that poll, nine out of ten fans said technology had made the matchday experience worse, and even more than that felt it had harmed goal celebrations (the main reason a fan goes to begin with).

There are none so deaf as those who won’t hear.

The same survey also said that 94% of respondents disagreed that VAR has made watching the games on TV more enjoyable. Unsubstantiated rumours persist that The Premier League took from this that fans did think it made it more enjoyable but just wanted less adverts.

Sky said there are many factors and bodies involved in deciding which games to move, then tried to lay the blame squarely on the police. Now the police in the UK are to blame for a lot of things but this shouldn’t be one of them. There is no way a superintendent is banging his or her truncheon on the table demanding that Everton play more on a Monday.

Unless they are an Everton fan and that’s their night off.

As the tail continues to wag the dog, Sky will – and can - hold firm. They will be pretty confident that, after the initial fuss dies down, no-one will care about any of this for long enough to make them change a single thing.

This ain’t Germany, after all, where fans successfully got Monday games thrown off the schedule through carefully co-ordinated protests. Or France, where they’d just go on strike until they were. Italian fans have even boycotted games to show their disapproval – albeit for a bad owner rather than a bad night of the week – but still.

Nope, this is England. We’ll moan – sure – but when push comes to shove we will also wave it through like an inedible meal at a restaurant we’ve just paid a fortune for.

Probably the Best Study In The World

During the work we did with the Danish Superliga, a small and separate study was carried out on lapsed fans of Brondby IF – one the country’s most decorated clubs and who have a Carlsberg fan zone that is the envy of Europe and reason alone to never give up your ticket – that showed that one of the key reasons for a fan deciding to stop going was the constant movement of games from their usual kick-off day and time.

The fans we spoke to, and who’d been season-ticket-holding regulars, found that Brondby games being changed from a Saturday or Sunday were simply not compatible with their employment or family life when they were moved to a Friday and, especially, a Monday night. This is particularly true as fans get older, and take on more commitments at home and work.

But money, of course, talks and broadcasters can call the tune when leagues are so desperate for it. They just want eyeballs and will pay plenty of Danish Krona for them. Fans, whilst a key element in the overall equation, aren’t afforded any role in the decision-making process. They get what they’re given.

And while fan power did rear its head to good effect during the pandemic, when supporters of the ‘big 6’ in England had the proposed European Super League shut down in a matter of days, that is looking more and more like a one-off, perpetuated by necessity to head off civil war at a time when clubs were having to play in front of empty stadiums as it was.

The Price is Flight 

Now, despite the looming new cost-of-living crisis that the US-Iran conflict is imposing on the world, most Premier League clubs are looking to make even more money from existing fans by pushing up the ticket prices for next season – again.

They do this even after mediocre seasons, or because they want to raise revenue for even more new and expensive signings. The message being: if you want us to improve, pay more. And if you don’t want to pay more, then move aside so someone else can. Put up or shut up.

Only Nottingham Forest look to have listened to, and factored in, fans when deciding on their season-ticket prices for 2026/27; promising to freeze them although they’ve done so under the spectre of possible relegation. Maybe they’ve realised that there needs tom be some kind of correlation between the prices they charge and the number of managers they’ve had in a season.

But if a Premier League club ends up as the new Everton, and Sky’s Monday-night performer of choice, then their fans are continually paying more for less - fewer weekend games for a start - but also less enjoyment when they are there, and a poorer fan experience if the results of the FSA’s VAR survey are to be taken seriously.

So the simplest way to avoid Mondays – or Fridays for that matter – is just to be either much better…

…or much worse.

Manchester United – seemingly set to return to the Champions League – are showing the way in this respect, ensuring that their midweek diary will be a lot fuller next season.

So to, even though they weren’t impacted this season, are Spurs.

But with 46 league games to fit in, filling their midweek calendar is the last thing they’ll need to worry about next season.