The 18th matchday in the Premier League is actually only half a matchday. Because of the rapidly increasing number of Covid 19 infections in Great Britain and at many clubs in England's highest football league, half of the matches have been canceled. As of Friday afternoon, there will be just five games this weekend, further cancellations are by no means excluded. On the previous game day during the past week, three games were postponed to a later date because the teams involved could not muster enough healthy staff. Manchester United, Leicester City, Watford, Norwich and Brentford are currently particularly badly affected.
Thomas Frank, coach of newly promoted Brentford FC, recently brought an interruption of league operations into play to prevent further infections. "The Covid cases are going through the roof at all Premier League clubs," said the Dane. In his opinion, canceling the entire match day and the subsequent round of the league cup would buy the clubs time to deal with the difficult situation. Some of the heavily affected teams are currently not even training as planned. Frank received support from Brighton's trainer Graham Potter, among others: “We all want football to go on, for life to go on. But health is the most important thing. ”And Leeds United's Marcelo Bielsa said he didn't want to have to play against teams just for reasons of fairness.that have been significantly weakened by the pandemic.
Timo Werner also tested positive
Jürgen Klopp is also appearing once again as the voice of reason these days.
Most recently, he called on Liverpool fans to get vaccinated.
However, he does not consider an interruption of gaming operations to be expedient because Corona has not disappeared after such a break.
Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel had to do without the positively tested players Timo Werner, Romelu Lukaku, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ben Chilwell during the week, but said the club had not requested a postponement of the game against Everton (1-1) because of this.
So far, the league has not sent any signals that indicate an interruption in game operations. The decision-makers in London are very interested in a sequel - if only with a view to the contractual obligations towards national and international TV rights holders and the popular “Boxing Day” at Christmas, when football is traditionally played in England. The complete standstill in spring 2020 and the subsequent games in front of empty or sparsely occupied stands cost the league's clubs together around two billion pounds, according to Premier League boss Richard Masters. The rule now stipulates that a club cannot compete if it has fewer than 14 players available. In the current situation, however, decisions should also be made on a case-by-case basis, for example on the basis of the questionswhether a team can train adequately and whether the infection process is under control.
Low number of vaccinations among professionals?
The omicron variant of the coronavirus is considered more contagious than previous variants.
The existing vaccination protection against it should also be lower.
Even so, the low number of vaccinations among professional soccer players could also play a role in the current outbreaks.
The English Football League, under whose roof leagues two to four are played, recently published a study according to which a quarter of all players are unvaccinated.
59 percent have been vaccinated twice, 19 percent have received the first dose or are willing to be vaccinated.
The Premier League has not provided any figures for vaccination.
Klopp said, however, that all Liverpool FC players were fully vaccinated and that some had already received their booster vaccination.
The 20 Premier League clubs will discuss how to proceed on Monday.
The aim is to be transparent about the rules for game cancellations, but also to be able to keep the game going.
In addition, canceled encounters must be rescheduled.
This will be extremely complicated with a view to the European Cup, the Africa Cup in January and February and the compressed summer break due to the World Cup in 2022.