This Sunday, December 26, Boxing Day begins one more year, the traditional Christmas day of English football, as exciting as ever in sports but harshly marked by the covid pandemic. Not in vain the Premier announced on Monday a new record number of positives for coronavirus: 90 last week among players and club employees. Meanwhile, this Thursday the postponement of two of the Boxing Day matches, Liverpool-Leeds and Wolves-Watford, was announced due to covid outbreaks.
The English football marathon
Both Leeds and Watford asked that their respective matches be postponed due to not having enough players due to the positives detected. The team led by Marcelo Bielsa, which also has numerous injuries, has closed its sports city for two days.
The Premier, arriving at Boxing Day
Chelsea received good news: Romelu Lukaku and Callum Hudson-Odoi have overcome the covid and, after testing negative, they return to training.
Boxing Day also marks the start of the marathon of matches offered by English football at this time: three days of the Premier League, the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup (Arsenal-Liverpool and Chelsea-Tottenham) and the 30th anniversary of the FA Cup. Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City leads the English championship to the iconic Boxing Day, with four points more than Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, 2nd, and six more than Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea, 3rd. The Catalan coach is looking for his fourth Premier, after those of 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2020-21.
Arsenal-City y Chelsea-Liverpool
To open 2022, on the first day of the year, the calendar offers a duel between Mikel Arteta and his friend Pep Guardiola, an Arsenal (now 4th) -Manchester City. But said 21st day also offers nothing less than a Chelsea-Liverpool, 3rd against 2nd. Curiously, the ‘red’ will meet again, this time at the King Power Stadium, on December 28 with Leicester, who on Wednesday they eliminated by penalties from the Carabao Cup
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