Hammers Wednesday evening's fixture against Arsenal at the Emirates is in serious jeopardy of being cancelled at the last minute as the host club deal with a potentially huge Covid -19 outbreak as the Omicron variant continues to ravage through all areas of football and the wider community.
The Gooners London Colney training ground currently resembles a Stalag Luft 17 movie set, with layers of protective cones directing players and staff to a 'secure area' where they are given Covid tests while STILL in their vehicles! Judging from afar and taking into consideration the comments emanating from the North London club, there appears to be more than a definite chance of the game being called off.
Would a postponement of the fixture benefit West Ham? In a way yes, and in another way no. It should be remembered that ALL rearranged fixtures HAVE to be played within a certain time frame, the situation being exasperated by the start of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in that most democratic of places Qatar!
The schedule that had been arranged for December was already ludicrous, but if additional scheduling is required on a wholesale scale, total chaos would ensue. IF games are rescheduled for after the New Year, there would be an obvious benefit for David Moyes and many other Premier League managers in that they would have had an open transfer window available to strengthen their squads, this opportunity would probably benefit West Ham more than many others due to the current injury list and the well known paucity of the squad.
Hammers players returned from the last International break low on energy and out of sorts, it is to be hope that IF there are a lot of games rescheduled, that the additional time provided will be used to allow players to re-charge their batteries and to acquire one or two of David Moyes' transfer targets.
The games and possible cancellations come thick and fast throughout December, so any 'joy' at gaining a few days respite will only be short term unless ALL fixtures are suspended until further medical analysis of the new strain of Covid is available.
Clubs simply CANNOT afford to NOT play their games they OWE the Broadcasters, so there is a very strong likelihood that games will be played behind closed doors in the very near future, if they are allowed to be played at all! Make no bones about it, this is a very, very serious situation which currently DOESN'T have a positive prognosis!
We will have updates uploaded as soon as they are available, fans from both Arsenal and West Ham deserve as much advance warning as possible IF the fame is going to be called off.- Ed
Comments
i think
you have a point referring to the players being in need of recharging their batteries from the last International break as for the last 3-4 games the man of the match has been Declan rice and as luck would have it for us he had a bout of flu and was unable to play for England so rested and recharged his , and as you can see from his performances quicker and stronger than quite a few of the others esp. Anton who travelled almost half way round the world .