Manchester United have allegedly been hit with 19 positive Covid-19 cases across players and staff, it was revealed last night despite the management preferring to stay mum on the number of positive cases.
The Reds’ Premier League game at Brentford on Tuesday night was postponed after the club shut down first-team operations at their Carrington training base on Monday for 24 hours in an attempt to curtail the spread of the virus.
Carrington was reopened yesterday and the players who were available resumed training with interim manager Ralf Rangnick, but United are vigilantly in on-going talks with the Premier League over the status of their squad ahead of Saturday’s game at home to Brighton, who are themselves wrestling with their own Covid outbreak despite still lining up against Wolves last night.
It is now anybody’s guess whether United’s game with Brighton will commence with the warning alarms already buzzing as the Premier League has rejected requests from Leicester and Tottenham for their match at the King Power Stadium this evening to be postponed due to the spread of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
United have one of the biggest first-team squads and staff in the Premier League and the ‘Manchester Evening News’ reported that 17 first-team players were spotted arriving at Carrington yesterday, although the newspaper said some players who were not seen could have reported earlier. Apparently some players were in to do rehabilitation and conditioning work as part of their recovery process from injuries.
On another front, and acting swiftly on medical advice, Watford’s game with Burnley at Turf Moor last night was postponed after it emerged that the former’s ongoing outbreak had left them with an “insufficient number of first-team players available to fulfil the match”. It’s known that the Premier League are treating each situation on a case-by-case basis.
Under the Premier League’s new emergency protocols, players have all this while been tested for Covid-19 in their cars upon arrival and were not allowed to leave their vehicles under any circumstances until a negative test had been confirmed.
Brighton’s as manager Graham Potter confirmed on Tuesday they were dealing with their own Covid-related problems although their game against Wolves went ahead last night.
Meanwhile, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has called for greater transparency as to why fixtures are being called off due to Covid cases, with his comments coming before Burnley announced the postponement of their game with Watford because of “an ongoing Covid outbreak within the opposition squad”.
Klopp suggested, which made loads of sense, that there is no reason for a veil of secrecy around the positive tests of players and staff. He is one of a number of coaches to query the rules, suggesting there should be clarity as to how many infections will force a match to be postponed.
“I think it would be pretty helpful if we really know what the situation is,” said Klopp.