Reduced to tiers

Date01 January 2021
Published date01 January 2021
The Premier League might be the greatest and most expensive in the world, but Covid-19 couldn't care less.

Here we are, slap bang in the middle of the busiest period of a congested campaign and the pandemic has taken full advantage.

This virus doesn't have time off at Christmas. Instead, it has picked out a sitting duck and pounced, leaving the sport looking well and truly deflated once more. Who'd have thought it?

You didn't have to be Albert Einstein to work out that teams travelling around the country, between different tiers, to share football pitches and fist pumps with rivals would all end in, well, tears.

Pep Guardiola's season is now in absolute chaos following a second outbreak of Covid in the Manchester City bubble, forcing this week's game at Everton to be postponed and leaving his schedule looking like a maze he will never find a way out of.

The Toffees demanded answers, almost suggesting a conspiracy had taken place, just like Tottenham have done after their game with Fulham was called off three hours before kick-off.

The glaring clue to the circumstances of the postponement at Goodison Park was there in black and white in the City statement, which said the decision had been "based on strong medical advice".

Football might think it can operate in a different world at times, but it has been punched in the face this week with a sharp reminder that it isn't immune from being guided by the science.

Our NHS is on the brink of collapsing again, hospitals are running out of oxygen, doctors and nurses have been asked to cancel their annual leave and beds are in short supply. But despite all of this, not to mention the fact several hundred people continue to die every single day, the football season carries on regardless.

The country might be on its knees once more, but the football show must...

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