The Christmas carnage caused by Covid-19 continued on Thursday as the Premier League confirmed that two Gameweek 19 fixtures are off.
Liverpool v Leeds United and Wolverhampton Wanderers v Watford are the matches that have been postponed, with coronavirus outbreaks among the two visitors’ squads in those games putting paid to their Boxing Day encounters.
The cancellation of Liverpool’s fixture, in particular, will cause ructions in the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) world, with many of us immediately three players down thanks to the high ownerships of Mohamed Salah (£13.1m), Diogo Jota (£8.1m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.3m).
A Premier League statement said:
Following postponement requests from Leeds United and Watford as a result of COVID-19, the Premier League Board met this morning and regrettably agreed to call off the two affected clubs’ Boxing Day fixtures.
The two matches are Wolverhampton Wanderers v Watford and Liverpool v Leeds United, both due to be played on Sunday at 12:30 GMT.
The Board today was able to make its decisions in advance of Boxing Day to give clarity to clubs and their supporters. We apologise for the inconvenience and disruption caused to those fans’ festive plans.
The League is aware that the decision to postpone these two matches will disappoint supporters and understands their frustrations at a special time of year when fans look forward to attending and watching football games.
The League aims to provide as much clarity as possible, but unfortunately postponements sometimes have to be made at short notice, as safety is the priority. The League will endeavour to keep supporters updated if matches become at risk on a matchday.
The Board concluded that Leeds will not be able to fulfil their fixture this weekend due to the number of players with COVID-19, injuries and illness. The club’s training ground has also been closed after consultation with the UK Health Security Agency and the Premier League.
Watford continue to have an insufficient number of players to field a team after their match against Crystal Palace last Saturday was postponed following a COVID-19 outbreak.
Due to players coming out of isolation, it is fully expected Watford will be available for their fixture on Tuesday 28 December, against West Ham United.
The Board assesses applications to postpone matches on a case-by-case basis, based on existing rules and adapted COVID-19 postponement guidance introduced to clubs in light of the new Omicron variant.
ARE ANY GAMEWEEK 20 MATCHES AT RISK?
The Premier League statement above states that Watford v West Ham United is expected to go ahead in Gameweek 20 but there is a conspicuous lack of mention of the Leeds United v Aston Villa clash, which falls just 48 hours after Boxing Day.
While the peak of Watford’s Covid crisis is likely over, the situation may be getting graver at Leeds: they had only one confirmed coronavirus case in Gameweek 18, so the positive tests have clearly escalated at some point this week.
COULD MORE GAMEWEEK 19 MATCHES BE POSTPONED?
The answer to this, of course, is a resounding yes.
On the positive side, Leicester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and Brentford seem to be over the worst of their issues, while Steven Gerrard said on Wednesday that he expected Aston Villa’s Gameweek 19 fixture to be fulfilled.
Chelsea will soon welcome back a couple of key players from self-isolation, too.
But we’ve yet to hear from Dean Smith, whose Norwich City side were badly hit last week, while Burnley v Everton – which the Premier League has so far refused to postpone – is a slight worry given that the Toffees’ squad is at breaking point. Any more positive tests on Merseyside and that fixture could fall, too:
Then there is the nagging doubt over teams who have reported only one or two Covid cases recently, such as Arsenal and West Ham, given the potential for a wider outbreak to occur.
Crystal Palace, Manchester City, Newcastle and Southampton seem to have dodged any positive test results so far but those situations, of course, could change swiftly.
GAMEWEEK 19 CAPTAIN, TIME TO FREE HIT – AND SELL SALAH? INSTANT REACTION
We’ve set up some Hot Topics and polls on our site in the light of this afternoon’s news, with gooberman asking about alternative Gameweek 19 captains, Bookkeeper pondering about selling Salah and Rotation’s Alter Ego raising the Free Hit question once more.
We’ve got polls on all three topics, too, one of which is a revised captaincy poll – a vote that Salah was predictably dominating before the postponement.
2 years, 4 months agoI think at this time, the EPL won't be necessarily looking to fit in the postponed games, but maybe reaching into the future to advance other games to fill the gaps. It would allow those still in cups to get their doubles later on, without creating massive pressure.