Covid 19: Thomas Frank calls for Premier League games to be postponed
Brentford Manager wants this weekend’s full round of Premier League fixtures and next week’s Carabao Cup matches to also be postponed in order to “break the chain” on the current Covid crisis.
Brentford manager Thomas Frank wants the upcoming round of English Premier League fixtures to be postponed to allow clubs to deal with coronavirus outbreaks.
Frank was informed midway through his news conference on Thursday, ahead of Brentford’s away match at Southampton on Saturday, of four more cases of the coronavirus among players and staff at the club. That took the total to 13.
Speaking ahead of his side’s trip to Southampton on Saturday, Frank said he had been in touch with the Premier League, as well as other managers in the league who he said are in agreement.
“We should postpone the full round of Premier League games this weekend,” Frank said. “COVID cases are going through the roof at all Premier League clubs, everyone is dealing with it and having problems.”
Brentford manager Thomas Frank wants the upcoming round of English Premier League fixtures to be postponed to allow clubs to deal with coronavirus outbreaks.
Frank was informed midway through his news conference on Thursday, ahead of Brentford’s away match at Southampton on Saturday, of four more cases of the coronavirus among players and staff at the club. That took the total to 13.
Three matches over the past week — Brighton-Tottenham, Brentford-Manchester United and Burnley-Watford — have been called off because of virus outbreaks in squads, and many teams have individual cases of COVID-19 amid a worsening health emergency in Britain caused by the omicron variant.
“We should postpone the full round of Premier League games this weekend,” Frank said. “COVID cases are going through the roof at all Premier League clubs, everyone is dealing with it and having problems.ADVERTISEMENT
“To postpone this round and also (next week’s English League Cup) round would give everyone a week at least, or four or five days to clean and do everything at the training ground so everything is clean and you break the chain.”
Frank said postponing this weekend’s round of league games could be enough to ensure the busy festive program in the division will be able to go ahead largely as planned.
isolating, but they must be patient as they build up their fitness.
“We fully respect that we want to play and it is important football keeps going, and this way we can make sure Boxing Day keeps going, I’m 100 per cent sure of that,” added Frank.
“This Omicron variant is running like wildfire around the world and I think we need to do all we can to protect and avoid it. I think we can do a lot by closing down training grounds for three, four or five days, and then we can go again.”
When Clarets defender Matt Lowton was asked at a press conference on Thursday what he made of Frank’s suggestion, and he said: “I’m not sure to be honest.”
“From my point of view, I just want to play football. I think from a player’s point of view, we want to play – we want to come to the weekend and have the game (at Aston Villa on Saturday), have the buzz, that’s what we’ve trained for all week.”
“But obviously the safety of players, fans and things like that is paramount. So hopefully the game can go ahead, but I can see why – I suppose if they did call it like that, you can see where they are coming from. Hopefully we can go ahead as safely as possible.”
