Chelsea vs Everton due to go ahead despite Covid cases in first-team squad at Stamford Bridge

Chelsea’s game with Everton on Thursday is still due to go ahead despite fresh cases of Covid among the first-team squad at Stamford Bridge.

It is understood a “small number” of players tested positive on Wednesday, joining Mateo Kovacic in isolation.

That immediately threw the game with Everton into doubt, with the football calendar rapidly being impacted by the spread of Omicron.

But the situation at Chelsea is not considered an outbreak because there were no new cases during testing on Thursday morning.

It is understood that it takes two consecutive days of positive cases for an outbreak to be declared, with Chelsea having no fresh cases since Wednesday.

But doubts will still remain given the rapidly changing situation at clubs.

There are growing fears the Premier League will have to shut down due to the failure to control Omicron.

Tottenham had games against Rennes and Brighton postponed last week after an outbreak among staff and first-team players.

Manchester United shut down first team operations this week, leading to the calling off of their visit to Brentford.

And late on Thursday Burnley’s clash with Watford became the latest to be postponed.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in