Leicester’s Premier League game against Tottenham on Thursday has been postponed due to a coronavirus outbreak, as Brentford coach Thomas Frank called for the entire weekend schedule to be scrapped. Britain faces record numbers of Covid-19 cases while the Omicron variant wreaks havoc, with mounting fears that the crisis could derail the football season. The Leicester v Spurs match at King Power Stadium was the fourth Premier League game to be postponed in the past week. Tottenham’s Covid-delayed Europa League game against Rennes has been cancelled.
“Leicester City can confirm that the Premier League board has decided to postpone Thursday night’s game against Tottenham Hotspur,” the club said in a statement on Thursday.
“The decision was made with the guidance of medical advisers after the club resubmitted its request for a postponement following confirmation this morning of further positive tests for Covid-19 within the first-team squad.
As a result, the club has too few players from the first team available to make the game happen.”
Brentford’s home game against Manchester United, which was scheduled to take place on Tuesday, was one of the other games postponed.
The club have Covid-19 issues in their own camp ahead of Saturday’s trip to Southampton and Frank said he would like to see a break in the game to help manage the situation across the league.
“We think we have to postpone the full round of Premier League games this weekend,” he said.
“Covid cases are going through the roof at all Premier League clubs. Everyone has to deal with it and has problems.
“If we postpone this round and also the Carabao (League) Cup round, everyone would have at least a week or four or five days to clean and do everything on the training ground so that everything is clean and you can get the chain breaks.”
Frank was made aware of four more Covid cases overnight – bringing the current total of players and staff at the club to 13 – midway through his Thursday morning press conference.
“This Omicron variant is like wildfire around the world and I think we should do everything we can to protect and avoid it,” he said. “I think we can do a lot by closing training grounds for three, four or five days, and then we can go again.”
Burnley’s home game with Watford was postponed just two and a half hours before the scheduled kick-off on Wednesday after an outbreak in the visitor team.
Burnley defender Matt Lowton was asked at a press conference what he made of Frank’s suggestion, and said he had mixed feelings.
“From a player’s point of view, we want to play – we want to come to the weekend and have the game (at Aston Villa on Saturday), have the buzz, we’ve been training all week for that,” he said.
“But of course the safety of players, fans and things like that comes first.”
Thursday’s game between Chelsea and Everton and Liverpool’s home game against Newcastle are both still on the schedule.
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