Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has stated that given the travel chaos imposed by Covid restrictions, he would prefer a one-legged tie rather than the imbalance of one team losing out on home advantage.
This week, his Man Utd side will travel to Turin to face Real Sociedad, instead of their San Sebastian home, because of current UK-Spain travel restrictions.
At present, the return leg is still scheduled to be played at Old Trafford.
Arsenal are also facing disruption in their Last 32 clash with Benfica.
Thankfully, there is no such problems for Rangers to deal with in the Europa League at this stage, but that could change if Steven Gerrard’s men progress past Royal Antwerp, with the opening first leg to be played in Belgium on Thursday in what is an eargerly anticipated game.
United gaffer Solskjaer stated on the matter:
“The different governments and the travel in Europe at the moment is difficult,” he said. “It’s not a decision we made but when one game is on a neutral venue, it’s a disadvantage to the team that doesn’t have the home game.
“That’s out of our hands, we can’t say we’d go to Turin and just play one game. I wouldn’t mind that at all. It would be one game less.
“That’s what we did last season. We met somewhere neutral and made it a tournament.
“Of course, home and away, if we’ve got to keep that going… as I said, we do have a little advantage and a disadvantage for Sociedad to have their home game in Turin.
“For me, I wouldn’t stand in the way of (changing) that. There’s probably other reasons why we don’t.”
A mini-tournament to conclude both the Europa League and Champions League can’t be ruled out but for now, the show goes on as top-level football finds a way through the covid restriction hurdles.
The sooner some kind of normality returns, the better.