Town’s New Year’s Day game at home to Lincoln City has been postponed at the Imps’ request due to Covid cases at Sincil Bank.
Lincoln’s game at Rotherham last night had been called off and so Saturday’s postponement comes as little surprise.
An EFL statement regarding the game reads: "Lincoln City informed the EFL that it would be unable to fulfil the fixture at Portman Road due to a number of positive Covid-19 cases in their squad.
"In light of the increased transmission rate of the Omicron variant, the EFL will now review the circumstances surrounding the postponement.
"In addition it will assist affected clubs throughout this challenging period to help them mitigate against the risk of infection amongst players and staff, while ensuring their obligations to the EFL regulations are maintained. A rearranged date for the fixture will be confirmed in due course.”
Imps chief executive Liam Scully told his club's official site: "We had hoped, under new guidance, to have players returning to the squad after completing a reduced self-isolation period.
"The new rules would have allowed them to come out of self-isolation with a negative lateral flow test after seven days, unfortunately the tests remain positive which means we cannot fulfil the fixture.
"Those who have tested positive will have completed their self-isolation periods in time for our next fixture at home to Oxford United on January 8th which we expect to go ahead as scheduled.”
Speaking after last night's match, manager Kieran McKenna was preparing as if the Lincoln fixture would take place.
"Yes, 100 per cent,” he said. "Obviously we want to play the game. Lincoln have been in touch and they want to play the game as well. They’re saying that they’re keen to get it on, so we’ll prepare the game, we’ll be ready but at the moment with the way the world is everything’s one day at a time.
"We have to prepare the game as if it’s going to go ahead and hopefully it does. That’s what we’ll be ready for.”