It’s all about self-interest, and not just at the bottom of the table…

Battle lines have been drawn in probably the frostiest dispute the Premier League has ever known amongst its own clubs.

But what have all the clubs said? And is it simply the top six against the bottom six or is every club acting purely in its own interests when it comes to playing matches at neutral stadiums?

The first thing to point out is that every Premier League club signed up to the following statement in this link on May 1, so there is unanimous support for everything written below, if little else.

But despite it being explicitly referenced in the statement, some teams’ ideas of what “the integrity of the competition” means are very different to others, and self-interest doesn’t appear to only apply to those teams battling relegation.

Interestingly it seems to be the teams outside the top six – those who understand each other best but are unable to show any empathy due to the greater long-term risk involved – that are tearing seven bells out of one another, desperate to feed off any scrap they can find.

Just take a look at the fixtures each club has and then their public position on playing matches at neutral venues.

The only teams known to oppose neutral venues are fighting relegation, but they are also all due to play more home games than away games before the season concludes.

The only teams to publicly support neutral venues have more away games than home games to play before the end of the season.

Here’s what all the clubs have been saying.

1) LIVERPOOL 

Remaining fixtures – Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues – No public position

Comments from club officials – No Liverpool club officials have commented on the prospect of playing at neutral grounds and The Athletic claim they have maintained a ‘sphinx-like cool’ in meetings, refusing to reveal their hand.

2) MANCHESTER CITY

Remaining fixtures 

Six home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position

Comments from club officials

Sergio Aguero has stated that players are scared to return to training while not publicly opposing a restart.

Kevin De Bruyne says he believes the season will be finished without fans due to the financial demands of the Premier League clubs even though playing behind closed doors is “not really interesting for anyone”.

3) LEICESTER

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position

Comments from club officials

Brendan Rodgers has called for the season to restart to lift the mood of the nation but says safety must come first.

4) CHELSEA

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position. However, The Athletic via Football.London have suggested that Chelsea are comfortable with using neutral venues.

Comments from club officials

Frank Lampard has not said he is against neutral venues but did say “we probably have the integrity football issues which would be neutral venues”.

Lampard also said he doesn’t think it would sit well “not just with me, but with anybody”, if football was diverting tests from NHS staff.

Antonio Rudiger says it would “not sit right on my conscience” if football restarted while there was “a danger” and the sport “ignored that people were dying”.

But Rudiger added: “If everything fits and it comes from those in charge that it’s OK, there’s no danger, then we can start”.

5) MANCHESTER UNITED

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position

Comments from club officials

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says “it would be a boost for everybody” to get football back on, but he will not force players to play if they have safety concerns.

Ed Woodward says Man Utd are “not necessarily happy” about football returning behind closed doors.

But he added: “It’s important to get back to playing football and complete this season once it’s safe to do so.”

As of the beginning of April, Luke Shaw did not want to play games behind closed doors.

6) WOLVES

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position

Comments from club officials

Diogo Jota has called for the Premier League to complete the season.

7) SHEFFIELD UNITED

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, six away games

Position on neutral venues

Sheffield United have been among the most vocal supporters of finishing the season.

Comments from club officials

Chris Wilder said: “There’s no compromise in this. We have to finish the season, however long it takes.”

8) TOTTENHAM

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position and chairman Daniel Levy has been described as difficult to interpret during meetings.

The Athletic stated that some believed Levy had been leaning towards cancelling the season for reasons that nobody knew.

It was speculated that one of these reasons could be Tottenham’s heavily incentivised player contracts.

Comments from club officials

In March, Harry Kane said he didn’t believe the season should continue beyond the end of June.

But Jose Mourinho said it would be “good for football” and “good for every one of us” if the season were to be completed.

He also stated that he doesn’t think of any game as behind closed doors when cameras are in the stadium and millions of people are watching on TV and online.

9) ARSENAL

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, six away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position.

However, Arsenal are reported to be one of the most active clubs in seeking a restart during meetings.

The Gunners would reportedly be one of the hardest hit teams in terms of TV revenue should the season be cancelled.

They are also said to believe they have a good chance of achieving Champions League football, particularly if Man City’s UEFA ban stands and 5th place is enough to qualify.

Comments from club officials

Mikel Arteta says: “We are all aiming to play, we need to play, we are willing to play – it is important for society and the economy.”

But he adds: “We cannot rush it.”

Arteta also said the most difficult part of a restart would be educating the players on the safety measures.

10) BURNLEY

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues

Burnley support a return at neutral venues

Comments from club officials

Captain Ben Mee says Burnley “can certainly get over” playing in neutral venues.

He also said they would be willing to go into quarantine if necessary.

11) CRYSTAL PALACE

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues

Crystal Palace are the most vocally supportive club of finishing the season at neutral venues with chairman Steve Parish having been described as “The Face of Project Restart”

Comments from club officials

Steve Parish described neutral venues as the “least-worst option” and said those clubs against it “aren’t looking far enough down the road”.

He also stated that he believed he would have the same position if his club were in the relegation zone.

Roy Hodgson said in April that he believed the season must be finished.

12) EVERTON

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position. However The Athletic state that they are “generally relaxed” about the prospect.

Comments from club officials

Carlo Ancelotti said in March that he doesn’t care when football returns.

However, he also said that it’s “a joke” to suggest a lengthy pre-season will be needed, recalling the time in 2006/07 when his AC Milan side were called to play a Champions League qualifier against Red Star Belgrade with just four days notice and went on to win the competition.

13) NEWCASTLE

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position

Comments from club officials

No comments

14) SOUTHAMPTON

Remaining fixtures

Four home games, five away games

Position on neutral venues

Southampton support completing the season and are willing to accept neutral venues in order to do so.

Comments from club officials

Southampton CEO Martin Semmens said in March “it would be a good thing” if there was a Premier League game on TV every day, particularly if people were still at home.

And in May he added that like every other business owner in the country, he is keen for everybody working to return when it is safe.

15) BRIGHTON

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

Brighton have been the Premier League’s most vocal opponents of neutral venues.

Comments from club officials

Brighton CEO Paul Barber has said “absolutely nobody” will convince him that neutral venues are fair.

He has also stated that “four of the biggest clubs in Europe” (Arsenal, Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool) are scheduled to face Brighton away and his club have “traditionally done OK against them” at the Amex.

Barber added that he has no problem with relegation if Brighton happen to be one of the three worst teams.

“But what we can’t accept is a fundamental change to the competition three-quarters of the way through,” he concluded.

And he also criticised anonymous briefings from other clubs and said he didn’t understand why his club were being made out to be bad guys.

Glenn Murray has said that wearing face masks would be “quite farcical” and any ideas of quarantine camps were “far fetched”.

16) WEST HAM

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

West Ham oppose neutral venues.

Comments from club officials

Karren Brady told The Sun: “What is reasonable to one club may end up unfair to another.

“Neutral grounds for the rest of the season falls bang into that category.”

She also appeared to mock certain requirements of restarting the season such as disinfecting the grass.

And she added that while the West Ham board will not ask players “to do anything we would not ask of our own children or family”, teams battling relegation may find it harder to allow members of their squad to opt out of the rest of the season than those in mid-table.

17) WATFORD

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

Watford oppose finishing the season at neutral venues.

Comments from club officials

Chairman and CEO Scott Duxbury said at the end of April that he didn’t even want to talk about football until the strain on the NHS has been reduced and the government said it was safe to play.

But in May he said that as the government is coming around to the view that football should restart, it is now inevitable that it will happen.

However, he labelled any attempt to complete the season at neutral venues “a distorted, nine-game mini-league”.

He added: “So is this fair? Does it have any semblance of sporting integrity? Of course not.”

Duxbury also stated: “Critics will say my position is founded on self-interest and they would be absolutely right.

“I have a duty to protect my club and the people employed by it, some of whom have worked for Watford Football Club for more than 20 years and dedicated their lives to it.

“There is no altruism in the Premier League. There are 20 different vested interests, which sometimes align but more often than not work purely to protect each individual club.”

In April, Jose Holebas said it was “pretty clear” that the best thing to do would be to award Liverpool the title and cancel the season.

And on May 1, Christian Kabasele mocked the idea of training in masks.

However, captain Troy Deeney said in March that the season had to be finished “just to get a fair outcome”.

18) BOURNEMOUTH

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position

The bottom six are believed by most sources to collectively oppose neutral venues.

The Athletic states that while Bournemouth are among that group they are strongly in favour of finishing the season as they believe their squad has an excellent chance of staying up now most players have recovered from injury.

Comments from club officials

Simon Francis listed a series of concerns to The Times about football’s plans to restart.

19) ASTON VILLA

Remaining fixtures

Six home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

Aston Villa oppose neutral venues

However, The Athletic states that as they have a replenished squad and John McGinn is set to return from injury, the club are very keen to complete the season using home grounds.

Wesley and Tom Heaton are also likely to be back from long-term layoffs in time for the restart.

Comments from club officials

CEO Christian Purslow said Aston Villa pride themselves on their home form.

And he pointed out that it would be a “massive decision” to give up home advantage with six games out of ten scheduled to be played at Villa Park.

Purslow added: “When you say to any club, ‘we want you to agree to a bunch of rule changes that may make it more likely that you get relegated’, they’re not thinking about TV money, they’re thinking, ‘my goodness, am I going to agree to something that results in me being relegated and losing £200m?”‘

Conor Hourihane said that it is a “scary time” at the moment and “it would seem money is being talked about more than the health and safety of staff and players”.

However he added that he was not sure what his view was on whether the league should restart or not.

20) NORWICH

Remaining fixtures

Five home games, four away games

Position on neutral venues

No public position, however Norwich are believed to oppose neutral venues in private.

Comments from club officials

Daniel Farke says Norwich have “total trust” in the Premier League and they should “try everything” to finish the season.

But he added: “But, if it is the situation that – by not finishing the season – we save one life then we should do that.”