The Blues’ game at Fleetwood Town now looks certain to go ahead in the next few days, however, the decision on whether it will be staged on Saturday, as initially scheduled, or next Tuesday will be made on Thursday.
As reported yesterday, five of the Blues’ players who previously tested positive for Covid-19 returned to training this morning following their 10-day periods of self-isolation and a decision on when the game will be played will be made on Thursday based on how they have recovered from their first day back at Playford Road.
If the quintet aren’t considered ready for a game on Saturday, Town could potentially have up to 13 players unavailable due to injury and Covid - one injured player has also tested positive - hence Tuesday being looked at as an alternative to allow them more time to get up to speed.
On the other hand, moving the match to Tuesday would mean the squad arriving back in Suffolk in the early hours of Wednesday and having less time to recover for the Saturday 9th January match at home to Swindon and it may be decided it would be better to make the trip to Fleetwood as planned on Saturday despite what may be a very depleted squad.
It had initially been expected that the game would be put back to later in the season but the EFL is keen to get matches played and there are concerns that action such as fines or even points deductions could be handed out retrospectively if games are postponed and it’s later deemed that they could have been played.
Town’s previous two games - the Boxing Day fixture at home to Northampton and yesterday’s planned away trip to AFC Wimbledon - were postponed after 11 players and staff - including manager Paul Lambert and general manager of football operations Lee O’Neill - tested positive for Covid-19. Prior to that, the Blues’ match at Peterborough had been called off after a positive test in the Posh squad.
The Peterborough United-Doncaster Rovers and Rochdale-MK Dons League One fixtures scheduled for Saturday have already been postponed, while speculation regarding a circuit breaker hiatus continues in the media but with the EFL currently ruling out such a move.
The Town squad will next be tested for Covid-19 on Monday as part of widespread testing across the 72 EFL clubs.