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.”

Photo: Steve Waller

Izzy added 18:05 - Dec 31 @Daniel72 I've had COVID over Christmas and I can assure you it's a lot more than a runny nose. If all you got, when you caught COVID, was a runny nose, think yourself lucky.
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therein61 added 18:43 - Dec 31 The E.F.L are not handling this at all well it seems that all it takes is a phone call and a game is called off without any checks what so ever they need to get their house in order if a team has a squad of 20+ then obviously they should be able to put a team out on the park(unless it's proved differently which the E.F.L are not doing)
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htb added 21:35 - Dec 31 I've just had COVID and know of least 5 others whose symptoms no worse than a mild cold. All of us at least double vaccinated most triple so not sure why people go on about the vaccination as if it stops you getting or transmitting it. It doesn't. Hopefully though it is preventing the vulnerable from getting serious Illness.
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gosblue added 22:39 - Dec 31 Mick Mc used to call games off during international breaks at every opportunity, it was shocking. As to Lincoln, every business has to have up-to-date Covid risk assessments to keep staff and customers safe. The EFL should be checking those, so we can only assume Lincoln have done all they can. I don't think it will be long however, before testing without symptoms is a thing of the past and life can get back to some kind of normality and the majority of people don't even know they've got it.

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algarvefan added 00:27 - Jan 1 2022. Happy New Year to all Town fans all over the world, wherever you are, gotta feeling this is going to be a much better year for everyone.
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