At precisely 2.02pm, Jose Mourinho was sitting with his feet up. With just under four hours until kick off against Fulham, he and his coaching staff should have been making their final preparations.
Instead, they were slouched on communal sofas, buried deep in their phones with Sky Sports News humming away on a giant screen in the background. Slowly panning around the room with his phone before lingering on the time, Mourinho posted a video to Instagram captioned: “Match at 6PM… we still don’t know if we play. Best league in the world.”
Given that news had broken almost 24 hours previous that Fulham had returned a number of positive Covid-19 tests, Mourinho’s frustration was understandable. While the Premier League board had to convene to approve Fulham’s request for a postponement, something is wrong when the outcome of the decision-making process isn’t apparent until 3.14pm – the time the postponement was finally announced – on the afternoon of the game.
The resulting disruption goes beyond players, coaches and backroom staff. Mourinho will no doubt feel that waiting in limbo for so long was an unhelpful distraction for Spurs ahead of their next game against Leeds, with the prolonged uncertainty and sense of anticlimax both potentially unsettling for his team.
- Fulham’s match at Tottenham postponed after ‘significant’ rise in Covid-19 cases
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- Why the Premier League is confident fixtures can continue
- Everton and Liverpool matches go behind closed doors after tier change
- The Premier League is running out of dates to reschedule fixtures
Even worse is the fact that, with so little time until kick off, medics, security, groundsmen and media may have set off for work before hearing news of the cancellation. Allowing them to travel through Tier 4 London for no reason by leaving the announcement so late in the day is deeply unfair.
While the Premier League clearly needs to move faster when deciding how to respond to Covid-19 outbreaks, the first priority should be the health of players, club staff and others working in football. This is now the third Premier League fixture postponed on account of Covid-19, while Fulham join Manchester City, Newcastle and Sheffield United in suffering a significant flare-up within their squad.
The latest round of testing in the top flight returned 18 positives, the highest figure of the season so far. While the Premier League insists there are “low numbers of positive tests across the overwhelming majority of clubs” and there is “full confidence” in being able to continue as scheduled, it feels like an increasingly precarious situation.
Sam Allardyce has called for a “circuit break”, though increased fixture congestion comes with the risk of more serious injuries down the line. Still, when even Big Sam is worried, the Premier League at least needs to listen.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3o5Dl5d
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