Wrexham director, Shaun Harvey has opened up about the Blackburn Rovers clash and has opened up about it being on Monday night as opposed to a Saturday.
This week sees Wrexham travel to face Blackburn Rovers in a highly anticipated fourth-round FA Cup clash. The winner will face Premier League outfit, Newcastle United in the next round.
There has been plenty of discussion revolving around the encounter throughout the week with everyone giving their opinion.
This started with Phil Parkinson who has opened up about the meaning of this clash. This has been added to by Rob McElhenney discussing the clash with fans.
There has been one issue which has almost been brushed under the carpet in recent weeks that has now been brought up.
Shaun Harvey on Blackburn scheduling
It is safe to say that Wrexham fans would much rather have an away trip to a Championship side at the weekend. Instead, it is on a Monday night.
Between The Racecourse and Ewood Park, there are 72 miles and a journey that could take over an hour and a half. While this doesn’t sound too bad, on a weekday night it is slightly unnecessary.
Speaking to Goal.com, Shaun Harvey has opened up about the club’s profile and how that affects their fixture list.
On that, he said: “You can look at it in a number of different ways. For a football club whose profile has been magnified through a TV documentary series. We have to understand that media is massively important.
“Yes, it is inconvenient that the game is no longer at the weekend. This for a lot of fans who may no longer be able to get there to watch it live. In an ideal world, of course, we’d have played on Saturday at 3pm. We haven’t played an FA Cup tie on a Saturday at 3pm for as long as I can remember.”
The last round was against Shrewsbury and that was a Sunday afternoon and this one coming up is a Monday night. These have been moved for TV scheduling which does bring in added revenue for the club. Not that Harvey seemed bothered by that.
Continuing on, he added: “My biggest issue with the game going to the Monday night is that we have effectively lost a potential midweek date, to be able to catch up and play one of the league games.”
It is clear that the issue is more to do with fixture congestion than anything else for Harvey. With the Reds already two games in hand, it is inconvenient.