Tottenham to request Brighton postponement as Covid outbreak worsens

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Louise Thomas

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Tottenham Hotspur are set to ask the Premier League to postpone their fixture against Brighton on Sunday after a coronavirus outbreak at the club worsened.

A number of first-team players and two members of the coaching staff tested positive on Tuesday with the situation understood to have significantly worsened overnight into Wednesday with as many as eight players now affected.

Spurs play Rennes in a must-win Europa Conference League game on Thursday before Premier League games at Brighton and Leicester over the next seven days.

Calling the Rennes game off appears highly unlikely as, according to Uefa rules, a team needs to have fewer than 13 available players or no registered goalkeeper available for that to be the case.

The club saw matches against Aston Villa and Fulham called off last season due to Covid, while two players posted false positive results on a lateral flow test earlier this term, but were later cleared to play by a negative PCR test.

“The situation is serious,” boss Antonio Conte said on a Zoom press conference on Wednesday. “Every day we are having a positive. Today we had one player and one member of staff.

“The worst is we don’t know and we continue to have contact with people who the day before were negative. Not a good situation.”

“The situation is serious,” he reiterated. “There’s a big infection. And now, for sure, we’re a bit scared. Because we don’t know what is going to happen.”