Premier League faces rising Covid crisis after Burnley v Watford is postponed

The Premier League was straining to keep its competition on the road and its clubs onside on Wednesday night as postponed matches and uncertainty over Covid rules heightened the sense of a returning crisis.

Burnley’s match at home against Watford became the third top-flight fixture called off in the past week after a Covid outbreak in the visiting squad. The decision to postpone the match was announced at 5pm, as people were beginning to arrive for a 7.30pm kick-off.

A growing number of Premier League sides are battling outbreaks, with Manchester United understood to have as many as 20 cases among players and staff. Their match against Brentford on Tuesday was called off and they are due to play on Saturday against Brighton. Tottenham’s game at Leicester on Thursday is set to go ahead despite both clubs calling for it to be postponed.

Spurs are recovering from an outbreak last week that forced matches against Rennes and Brighton to be cancelled, and they asked the league to call off the Leicester game as they tried to reschedule the Rennes tie for Thursday. Brendan Rodgers said Leicester, who are dealing with Covid cases, would be without nine players through illness or injury. He has no fully fit centre-halves and both managers spoke out against the decision to play on.

“It’s disappointing because we have always wanted to support all the measures but when we need a little support with the extreme situation we find ourselves in we weren’t able to get it,” Rodgers said. “I’m sure there will have been games called off with less players than we have unavailable. It would be nice if there was a bit more clarity around the issue of how many players need to be unavailable.”

Spurs have had nine first-team players test positive for Covid and their training ground was shut for three days from last Thursday on the advice of the Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England). They face being made by Uefa to forfeit the Rennes match 3-0, which would lead to them exiting the Europa Conference League.

Antonio Conte said: “The Premier League didn’t want to postpone the game against Leicester. Maybe because we postponed two games before … against Burnley [because of snow] and Brighton. I can understand, we can understand.

“On the other hand, we deserve our chance to play against Rennes to go through to the next stage. We don’t find a good solution between Uefa and the Premier League. It’s not fair we have to pay for a situation that isn’t our fault. It’s a really strange situation because we didn’t play through no fault of our own but because of a big problem and because the government closed our training ground.”

Following Brighton’s 1-0 defeat to Wolves on Wednesday night, the head coach, Graham Potter, confirmed the club had “three or four” positive Covid cases and had asked for the game to be rescheduled. “We asked the question, yes, because of our situation,” said Potter. “You haven’t really got time to be disappointed. All you can do is put your case forward and speak to the people and they make the decision.”

The Premier League considers postponement applications on a case‑by-case basis. Although its handbook says a match can be postponed if fewer than 14 squad members are available, there are subsidiary criteria – such as the potential for drafting in under-21 players – that mean a game can still go ahead.

It is understood Norwich experienced an outbreak of Covid-like symptoms among their players before their defeat by Aston Villa but were advised to play on after the players failed to record positive test results. Jürgen Klopp also spoke out. The Liverpool manager argued in favour of players and staff getting vaccinated, calling it an act of “solidarity”, as he insisted his club had done all they can to mitigate the spread of Covid. He said the league should be more transparent and confirm the number of players who have tested positive at each club.

“I don’t understand why we are not more open,” Klopp said. “A lot of people catch Covid at the moment – that is how it is. If I catch it, and hopefully not, I would be completely fine to tell people I have it. Why do we hide it? … If people don’t know they can doubt it or whatever. That is why I think a bit more transparency would be helpful.”

There is a similar lack of clarity from the Premier League over levels of vaccination among players, with numbers shared just once in October when the figure stood at 68%. The league has suggested an update may soon be forthcoming.

All this came on the day the government’s “plan B” regulations for mass gatherings finally came into place, with fans expected to be able to prove their vaccine status or show a negative Covid test result to enter a stadium. Premier League officials have confirmed that as few as one in five matchgoers will actually be checked due to fears of hold-ups and gathering crowds. Fans are expected to register their Covid condition with the club before leaving home and there are rules to ban them from the ground should they lack the appropriate proof.