Sundays traditionally belong to Sky Sports and Super Sunday. This upcoming Sunday sees two more games being shown live – including the Manchester derby. Only catch is it starts at 3;30pm instead of 4:30pm.
West Ham V Everton is the game on before Man Utd v Man City and that is a 1pm kick-off instead of the traditional 2pm.
There is no official word as to why the times are different but the Man Utd website released this statement:
“The derby with Manchester City will be staged towards the end of the month, with the Old Trafford encounter being moved to 29 October, kicking off at 15:30 GMT. The fixture, which we won 2-1 last season with Marcus Rashford netting a memorable winner, is to be shown live on Sky Sports in the UK.
“The unusual start time was agreed following consultation between the clubs, the broadcaster and local authorities.”
This could be a number of reasons but the mention of local authorities might swing more in the way of stopping trouble between the two sets of fans by having it on an hour earlier.
This would also explain why next month’s clash between Man City V Liverpool is a 12:30 kick-off on a Saturday even though Sky acquired the rights and 12:30 on a Saturday is usually when TNT broadcast their Premier League match.
This also affects the West Ham game as Sky Sports have purchased the rights to broadcast it. Starting earlier won’t suit the Hammers as they have a Europa League match in Greece on Thursday – this gives Moyes’ men less time to prepare.
Other games this upcoming Sunday that aren’t being broadcasted such as Liverpool V Nottingham Forest are all still to be played at 2pm.
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