LONDON: A coronavirus outbreak among Liverpool’s players and staff led to the team’s match against Arsenal in the English League Cup semi-finals being postponed Wednesday, adding to the backlog in English football caused by the fast-spreading omicron variant.

The English Football League, which runs the cup competition, approved a request from Liverpool for the game to be called off because of a slew of positive tests at the club that has led to the closure of their training ground.

Player availability had already been impacted because of injuries and absences for the African Cup of Nations, which is depriving Liverpool of Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah and Naby Keita.

The club are also missing a number of players through injury including Thiago Alcantara, Takumi Minamino and Divock Origi.

The first leg that was scheduled to take place at Arsenal on Thursday will now be staged at Anfield on Jan 13. The second leg will take place at Emirates Stadium on Jan 20.

“The league has accepted Liverpool’s request after determining, albeit reluctantly, that a postponement was the only option,” the EFL said, “as the club looks to mitigate against the further risk of infection amongst its squad and staff alongside ensuring public health was protected by not traveling from Liverpool to London.”

Liverpool “thanked Arsenal and the EFL for their understanding as we continue to navigate through this challenging period”.

Pepijn Lijnders, the assistant coach who has been filling in for Juergen Klopp while the Liverpool manager is in isolation, was one of multiple players and staff who tested positive for COVID-19 in the latest round of checks on Tuesday, the club said.

The latest wave of positive tests prompted the club to shut its first-team training facilities on Wednesday after consulting with public-health authorities. Practice was cancelled on Tuesday, too.

Liverpool’s next match is due to be the FA Cup third-round tie at home to Shrewsbury on Sunday, which could also now be in doubt.

Some clubs have previously had to forfeit games in the competition because of a virus outbreak in their squad. Competition rules state that games called off because of Covid-19 can be rearranged to be played no later than the start of the following round, which meant Liverpool had until Feb 27 the date of the final at Wembley Stadium to fit in the two legs of the semi-finals.

The English game has been majorly disrupted by the coronavirus, with 18 Premier League games postponed in recent weeks because of outbreaks in squads. Other major European leagues have been on planned winter breaks, with their teams starting to return to training and encountering problems of their own.

Burnley, who are in the Premier League’s relegation zone, are four games behind in the league this season — three of them because of Covid-19 outbreaks in opponents’ squads that led to matches being cancelled, twice on the day of the game.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2022