West Brom could face 5pm midweek kick-offs
Albion could kick-off midweek matches as early as 5pm under proposals which would see the Championship’s regular season finished in just 33 days.
The EFL last night released further details of its provisional plan for completing a campaign it hopes will restart a fortnight today.
Albion’s remaining nine fixtures will be fitted into a window of just four-and-a-half weeks with the season scheduled to finish in midweek, on either July 21 or 22.
The play-offs will then follow though the Baggies, who sit six points clear in second place, will hope they have already done enough by then to secure a Premier League return.
Midweek matches will take place on either a Tuesday or Wednesday with kick-off times of 5pm, 6pm and 8pm.
Fixtures scheduled for a Friday night will kick-off at either 6pm or 8pm, while Saturday games will start at 12.30pm, 3pm and 5.30pm. There will also be noon kick-offs for any matches taking place on Sundays.
Sky Sports will broadcast 30 of the remaining 108 Championship fixtures live, while the remaining 78 will be streamed live online. Season ticket holders will be given access to those broadcasts, though the details of precisely will be determined by each specific club.
The exact fixture schedule is being finalised and is expected to be released early next week.
Clubs will resume their season’s on the weekend of June 20 but then be granted a week free before the next round of fixtures, after the EFL agreed to push back one round of midweek matches, following complaints in some quarters the campaign was restarting too quickly.
Goalkeeper Sam Johnstone claims Albion are fired-up to “finish the job” and clinch promotion when the Championship season resumes.
He said: “Our mindset was always that we’d be coming back to finish the job. I don’t think one player took their foot off the gas during lockdown. That shows just how good and how focused this group is.”
