Source: SKY_Sports
League respond to Moyes claims
The Football League have admitted they had little option over the scheduling of Everton's Carling Cup fourth round tie at Tottenham after provoking the ire of David Moyes.
The Goodison Park boss claimed his side had been shown a 'lack of respect' over the timing of their trip to North London next week.
Everton are currently in Portugal for Thursday night's Europa League clash with Benfica, which is followed by their Premier League trip to Bolton on Sunday and the Spurs game little more than 48 hours later.
Moyes believes Everton have been hard done by, particularly with Arsenal and Liverpool, who also play in the Premier League on Sunday, meeting at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday evening.
The Football League stressed that scheduling was a "fundamental problem", and insisted they had tried to overcome the fixture pile-up but were unable to do so.
"The scheduling of the fourth round of the Carling Cup was always likely to be challenging due to the two major Merseyside clubs being drawn away against the two main North London clubs," a spokesman said.
"These problems were further heightened by three of the four clubs having Premier League matches on the previous Sunday."
The Football League claimed they had considered a number of alternatives to reschedule the match but could not find an acceptable option.
Police rejected an approach to play both fixtures on the Wednesday night and the Football League deemed the alternative of re-scheduling the match to a later date unworkable.
The nearest available slot was 8th/9th December, which would have been after the scheduled fifth round of the competition and could have had knock-on effects over the busy Christmas period.
The spokesman explained: "The fundamental problem facing domestic fixture planners is the increasing number of dates being utilised by Uefa for European competitions, especially with matches in the Europa Cup being played on Thursday evenings.
"In an already crowded fixture calendar it is becoming harder and harder for domestic football bodies to find dates that suit all parties."
