A professional women’s match in England has been postponed because of Covid cases for the first time this season, while Chelsea will be without their first-choice goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger for Thursday’s all-important Women’s Champions League game away at Wolfsburg, as increased case numbers impact the sport.
Manchester City’s away Women’s League Cup group-stage match at Leicester City on Wednesday night has been postponed because of an unspecified number of positive Covid-19 cases recorded within the Manchester City squad.
On the contrary, Chelsea’s European fixture on Thursday is not currently in any doubt, but they will be playing without Germany shot-stopper Berger and midfielder Drew Spence, with manager Emma Hayes confirming that both players have tested positive. The English side would qualify for the quarter-finals if they win or draw, but know they could be eliminated if they were to lose to two-time champions Wolfsburg by more than a one-goal margin.
For Manchester City, England midfielder Keira Walsh and Canada forward Janine Beckie tested positive for Covid on Saturday and were therefore ruled out of Sunday’s 3-2 win away at Birmingham City. However, on Wednesday afternoon, it was revealed that additional players in the squad had since tested positive too, prompting their trip to face Leicester to be rearranged. The names of those additional players have not been revealed.
England right-back Lucy Bronze had also missed Sunday’s match at St Andrew’s “as a precaution”, following Test and Trace guidelines. It is understood that Manchester City took the voluntary decision to switch to testing their women’s players on a daily basis – more frequently than the league’s new three-tests-per-week instructions – as an extra precaution in light of Walsh and Beckie’s positive tests.
Wednesday’s postponement is the professional English women’s game’s first relating to Covid cases since January, following a period of relative normality since a swathe of postponements at the start of 2021 at the peak of the spread of the Delta variant in the UK.
The newer Omicron variant has seen infection levels rise across the country. Last week, eight Covid cases were recorded across the WSL and Championship, which was the highest figure since July, when case levels were twice as high.
Hayes says her club have taken a “common sense” attitude to be cautious about the variant, explaining: “The realities are, Omicron is everywhere, and all parts of society are affected.
“We’ve kept the players outside. Even here [in Wolfsburg] the players will remain in their rooms and then we’ll just go to the training pitch and come [straight] back. [We’re wearing] even thicker masks, using more spacing on buses and on the plane etc, it’s a common sense approach.
“And I hate to say this but we have the experience of being in this position before. We’ve learnt a lot about how to socially distance appropriately, but as we all know, you cannot prevent it, you can just minimise the impact to our squad so we can finish the calendar year for the next two games.”
In England’s top two women’s divisions, around 80 per cent of players have been double jabbed, while 90 per cent of staff members are fully vaccinated.
Hayes revealed that every Chelsea Women player has been fully vaccinated, adding that she “hopes” international players will be able to travel to visit their families abroad during the upcoming WSL winter break.
Unlike the men’s game, the top English women’s divisions are set for a three-week winter break starting from Monday, December 20, which club sources are hoping will act as an unofficial circuit-breaker to halt any rise in Covid cases. The WSL will not resume until January 8.
Sources have told Telegraph Sport that at least one unnamed WSL club has invited their players to receive their booster jabs at their club’s training ground this week. Across the league, the FA are understood to have instructed clubs to encourage their players to receive their boosters.
