The weekend’s Premier League and English Football League calendar has once again been decimated by the rise of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
With thousands of new cases being registered each day, it seems incredulous that the various authorities appear happy to allow fixtures to continued unabated.
However, in the Premier League’s case it has come back to bite them.
A refusal to postpone any matches off of their own back which has led to teams continuing to mix at training, has ended with only one English top-flight fixture going ahead on Saturday.
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Once Aston Villa announced that their game against Burnley was off just two hours before kick-off, it left just the Leeds United v Arsenal game as the sole fixture.
Aston Villa v Burnley is OFF.
It’s due to Covid cases in the Villa camp.#bbcfootball pic.twitter.com/t9MCIk01er
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) December 18, 2021
There remains a possibility that it could also fall foul of the pandemic, as tests will still be being done during the hours leading up to the match, meaning some Gunners fans may have already made the trip to Yorkshire, and will clearly be hoping that everything goes ahead as planned.
It also left the BBC in a bit of a pickle concerning their usual Saturday night football highlights show, Match of the Day.
With at least five games normally shown, this Saturday’s edition will now have just the one match to talk about.
That prompted host, Gary Lineker, to take to Twitter and provide a dose of his usual, dry sense of humour.
The @BBCMOTD running order: Leeds United v Arsenal. Surely no one disagrees this week….then again, it is Twitter.
— Gary Lineker ? (@GaryLineker) December 18, 2021