Tottenham fans have been left enraged after the club seemingly suggested their Boxing Day clash against Crystal Palace is going ahead as planned, amid confusion following reports of a postponement.
The north London club posted on their Twitter account at 8.30am on Sunday morning with the caption ‘MATCHDAY’, providing details of the 3pm kick-off and location, being the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
That’s despite reports emerging on Saturday evening stating the game is set to be called off following further positive tests within the Palace squad, with neither club yet to comment on the matter.
Tottenham have seemingly suggested their Boxing Day clash against Crystal Palace is ON
Three Premier League games due to be played on Sunday have already been called off as a result of Covid outbreaks, and on Saturday Football.London reported two further members of Palace’s backroom staff had tested positive, following a number of confirmed cases among the playing staff days before.
With no official confirmation from either club or the Premier League, Tottenham’s latest update, or lack of, has left a number of fans, both planning to attend the game and not, more confused and increasingly angry.
A number of Tottenham fans have voiced their anger after a matchday tweet from the club
One fan responded to Tottenham’s post to state: ‘Be more clear it’s Boxing Day tell people the game is off early if so so they can spend time with their families instead of going out to do a wasted journey.’
Another wrote: ‘This is clearly a scheduled tweet that the team should’ve been smart enough to delay. If the PL does decide to postpone this morning, it gives false hope to thousands of fans travelling in the rain today.’
One fan, clearly set to depart to the stadium shortly, wrote: ‘Please tell us whether it’s definitely on or definitely off before we start travelling.’
It’s important to clarify that Tottenham’s tweet was posted on the dot of 8.30am and could well have been a pre-scheduled update, which the club routinely do on any given matchday.
However, there was a clamor for information online on Saturday evening following the emergence of the reports, which has now spilled into Sunday morning, just a number of hours before kick-off.
A number of fans have taken aim at the Premier League, with one stating: ‘Some clarity for the travelling fans given last nights news would be lovely given some will be starting their journeys soon or may already be on the way. It’s a shambles @premierleague.’
Importantly, despite Tottenham’s tweet, it still remains unclear whether the game is going ahead.
The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust reported in a tweet that they are in touch with senior staff at the club and stated the decision as to whether the game will go ahead or not is in the hands of the Premier League, to which BBC Sport’s Simon Stone replied ‘game in doubt’.
Sportsmail have approached Tottenham for clarification and are awaiting an answer.
Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira admitted he was concerned about the situation on Friday
Palace boss Patrick Vieira had admitted on Friday that he was worried about the current situation, particularly how the virus would impact an already hectic Christmas schedule.
The Frenchman said: ‘We hope we’re going to be okay [to face Spurs] but when you’re looking at the number of cases around we start to be worried.
‘We had a couple of cases in our football club in the last couple of days.
‘We try our best to prevent the situation but it is worrying because the evolution for the next couple of days we don’t know how it will go.
‘I’m not worried about the players’ welfare regarding the [frequency of] games during this period because it’s been like that for years and years. I’m worried about their welfare regarding Covid.
‘Players coming back from the Covid situation and asking them to play with not enough training is a lot on them.’
This is not the first time Tottenham fans have taken aim at the club’s social media team, having also been critical after they made a hash of Antonio Conte’s announcement as new manager in November.
Tottenham were made to delete an initial social media post after mistakenly announcing the news via ‘Twitter for Advertisers’, with the post getting just 387 likes in an hour due to the mistake.
To add insult to injury, the post was headed: ‘Bienvenido a Tottenham Hotspur, Antonio Conte’, a caption written in Spanish, not their new manager’s native language of Italian.
Tottenham’s Antonio Conte slammed the Premier League in his pre-match press conference
Conte himself was also critical of the Premier League during his pre-match press conference, stating their latest meeting consisting of all 20 clubs was a waste of time.
Amid a surge of coronavirus cases significantly impacting the League, a decision was made that there would be no Christmas circuit-breaker.
Conte, who has only just seen his Spurs side return to action following a mass outbreak, felt decisions had been made prior to the meeting and it was not worth it.
‘When you have a wall in front of you, you can say or ask what you want,’ Conte said on Friday. ‘But every decision was [already] taken.
‘We (managers) tried to speak. Some coaches tried to speak to ask about solutions but I think everything was decided and yesterday was a wall. For this reason also, I prefer not to go into the discussion or conversation.’