Five Premier League games due to take place this weekend have been postponed because of COVID-19 outbreaks and travel restrictions.
Following the announcement on Thursday morning that Manchester United’s game against Brighton on Saturday was off, the Premier League later confirmed four more fixtures would be postponed:
– Southampton vs Brentford – Saturday December 18, 3pm
– Watford v Crystal Palace – Saturday December 18, 3pm
– West Ham United vs Norwich City – Saturday December 18, 3pm
– Everton vs Leicester City – Sunday December 19, 12pm
This means five of the 10 matches scheduled for the weekend have been scratched from the schedule with the only games set to take place on Saturday now being Aston Villa’s home game against Burnley and Leeds vs Arsenal.
Despite the postponements, the Premier League is still resisting a complete suspension of the weekend programme and said in a statement: “All other fixtures due to be played this weekend are currently scheduled to proceed as planned.”
It added it would continue to evaluate applications for postponements on a “case-by-case basis“.
However, emergency measures, including more frequent testing, wearing face coverings while indoors, observing social distancing, and limiting treatment time, have been reintroduced.
Premier League’s stance came just hours after Brentford head coach, Thomas Frank called on the Premier League to suspend this weekend’s round of fixtures, with several top-flight clubs struggling to contain COVID-19 outbreaks as the highly-transmissible Omicron variant spreads across the country.
