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Jose Mourinho took aim at the Premier League‘s ‘Best league in the world’ tag by revealing he and his Tottenham players still have no idea if they will play Fulham in less than four hours time.
The Tottenham boss uploaded a video to his Instagram page where he is sat alongside his fellow coaches with his feet up on the sofa watching Sky Sports News.
Accompanying the video, Mourinho sarcastically captioned the video: ‘Match at 6pm… We still don’t know if we play. Best league in the world.’
Jose Mourinho shared a video on his Instagram page highlighting the confusion at Tottenham as to whether their game against Fulham on Wednesday evening will go ahead
Less than four hours before kick-off Tottenham are awaiting clarity if the match goes ahead
He openly mocked the Premier League and its ‘best league in the world’ tag in the caption
There is still uncertainty over the game going ahead with a matter of hours until the scheduled kick-off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Mourinho’s video showed he is far from happy with the situation.
As revealed by the Athletic on Tuesday , a number of people associated with Fulham have tested positive for the virus and as such the game has been placed in doubt.
Fulham boss Scott Parker will return to the dugout for the game should it get given the green light, following the completion a 10-day self-isolation period after a member of his household tested positive for Covid-19.
Tottenham are set to host the Cottagers in their final Premier League game of 2020 this week
Should the game go ahead, Scott Parker will return to the Fulham dugout against Spurs
The 40-year-old returned a negative test last week but continued to self-isolate in accordance with the Government guidelines before returning another negative test at the weekend.
On Tuesday the Premier League confirmed that there are 18 new positive Covid-19 tests among players and staff, the highest weekly total since Project Restart.
The latest round of testing saw 1,479 players and staff tested and the results show a sharp increase on last week’s total.
Manchester City’s trip to Everton on Monday was cancelled just hours before kick-off, a decision which left the Merseyside club furious and demanding a full explanation.
It is only the second game to be postponed due to Covid-19 after Newcastle’s visit to Aston Villa at the start of the December was called off.
Everton were furious as they wanted to play and had started pre-match preparations at the Hilton Hotel in Liverpool, their usual base.
Premier League rules state that matches should go ahead if a club has 14 available players, including a goalkeeper, although decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis and dependant on circumstances — particularly in relation to the pandemic.
But the league can take the precautionary measure of postponing the fixture if they believe that players and staff are at an increased risk of catching the virus.
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom posted its highest daily rate of infections since the pandemic began in March – with 53,135.
The previous highest number of cases in one round of Premier League testing this season was 16, during the week of November 9-15.
A Premier League statement read: ‘The Premier League can today confirm that between Monday 21 December and Sunday 27 December, 1,479 players and club staff were tested for Covid-19. Of these, there were 18 new positive tests.
‘Players or club staff who have tested positive will self-isolate for a period of 10 days.’
Sheffield United’s game against Burnley went ahead after multiple positive Covid tests
Chris Wilder, pictured arriving at Burnley, was only able to name seven subs for the game
Sheffield United reported a number of positive cases in their camp hours before kick-off on Tuesday but, unlike Manchester City on Monday, they did not request to postpone their trip to Burnley, which they eventually lost 1-0 courtesy of a Ben Mee goal.
Speaking before the game, Chris Wilder said Sheffield United had no choice but to ‘work with what we’ve got’ after being forced to leave out Oli McBurnie, Phil Jagielka and Billy Sharp, with ‘four or five’ staff members among the positive tests.
He said the club were always looking to play the game despite the outbreak and ‘did the right thing’ by telling the authorities about what had happened.
‘We’ve got a couple of players missing through illness, we had a player who had to get tested this morning and we’ve got a couple of injuries too, so it’s not ideal but we have to work with what we’ve got.’
The Premier League chiefs determined to press on with fixtures despite calls from a number of clubs to introduce a two-week ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
With teams already facing a jam-packed fixture list, the option to postpone and rearrange two weeks worth of games will prove to be extremely difficult ahead of this summer’s rearranged Euro 2020.
As revealed by Sportsmail, the Government has held talks with football authorities amid the increasing number of positive tests as a new strain of the virus sweeps the country.
Government officials offered Premier League clubs reassurance that football in the top flight would be able to continue, given their constant testing of players and staff, while the success of Project Restart helped prove the action can continue in a safe enough manner.
More to follow.
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