Covid spikes Gunners’ showdown with Spurs

Tottenham Hotspur reacted with surprise after the Premier League agreed to Arsenal’s request to have Sunday’s north London derby postponed because of a squad depleted by Covid-19 infections, injuries and players away at the Africa Cup of Nations.

Arsenal “reluctantly” asked the league on Friday to postpone the match, citing the number of their players who were now unavailable.

“With Arsenal having fewer than the required number of players available for the match (13 outfield players and one goalkeeper), the board accepted the club’s application (for a postponement),” the league said in a statement.

It is the 21st Premier League match to be postponed in little more than a month, since the surge of Covid-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant.

Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka was ruled out of Sunday’s match after picking up a red card in Thursday’s 0-0 draw at Liverpool in the League Cup semifinal first leg, while Cedric Soares, Bukayo Saka and Calum Chambers all sustained injuries.

Thomas Partey, Mohamed Elneny, Nicolas Pepe and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are on international duty in Africa, while Norwegian Martin Odegaard tested positive for Covid-19.

Arsenal are fifth on 35 points after 20 matches, two points above sixth-placed rivals Tottenham, who have two games in hand.

Tottenham, who last month were forced to forfeit a Uefa Conference League fixture against Rennes after a Covid-19 outbreak at the London club, later issued a statement saying fans again had plans disrupted at unacceptably short notice.

“We are extremely surprised that this application was approved,” the Spurs statement said.

“We ourselves were disqualified from the European Conference League after a significant number of Covid-19 cases meant we needed to reschedule a fixture and our application to move our Leicester fixture was not approved — only for it to be subsequently postponed when Leicester applied.

“The original intention of the guidance was to deal with player availability directly affected by Covid-19 cases, resulting in depleted squads that when taken together with injuries would result in the club being unable to field a team.

“We do not believe it was the intent to deal with player availability unrelated to Covid-19.

“It is important to have clarity and consistency on the application of the rule.”

Tottenham added that the food meant for their stadium’s catering facilities would be sent to food banks to avoid “unacceptable waste”.

In an earlier statement, Arsenal said: “We know how much this match means to our fans around the world, but the Premier League has made the decision to postpone the match, due to many players across our squad being unavailable as a result of Covid-19, existing and recent injuries, in addition to players away with their countries at Afcon.”

The decision to postpone the game robbed Sky Sports of its prime time Sunday fixture and commentator and pundit Gary Neville said he believed clubs were now abusing the Premier League rule.

“What started out as postponements due to a pandemic has now become about clubs not having their best team,” he said on Twitter.

“The Premier League must stop this now; draw a line in the sand and say all games go ahead unless you have an exceptional amount of (Covid-19) cases.

“It’s wrong.”

Reuters