Newcastle manager Eddie Howe has admitted his ‘sympathy’ for Liverpool after Jurgen Klopp’s complaints over the fixture scheduling.
Klopp has called on the television broadcasters to use ‘common sense’ and move Liverpool’s trip to face Newcastle at St James’ Park on April 30, a clash which comes between the Reds’ Champions League semi-final clashes with Villarreal and has been scheduled for the lunchtime kick-off.
Howe admitted he has sympathy for Liverpool and the short turnaround between games, but insists the Reds’ schedule comes with being successful in multiple competitions.
“It’s a very difficult situation. They’ve been very successful this year, they’ve ended up playing a lot of games, so I understand it from their viewpoint. I’d probably have the same opinion if I was them,” Howe said at his pre-match press conference ahead of Newcastle’s clash with Leicester this weekend.
“For us, we’ve been in their position many times over the years where you look at and you think, ‘How has it ended up this game being moved to this time or this day?’.
“But we have very little say in the fixtures in terms of when they come and how they sit, and you just have to react and deal with it.
“I have every sympathy with Liverpool, but they’re winning lots of games and they’re in lots of competitions, naturally it’s going to be that way.
“We get told when to play and we’ll turn up and do our best. It’s not up to us to decide when games are played.
“We ended up with four away games in very quick succession recently, which was far from ideal for us, but we had to bite the bullet and get on with it.
“As I said, we don’t decide the fixtures, we’ll play the game. But I do have every sympathy.”
