Update: Tottenham v. Palace to proceed as planned

UPDATE: After an evening of uncertainty, Tottenham has now confirmed that this match will proceed as planned. The article below was originally posted Saturday evening based on reporting from media sources close to the Crystal Palace club.

The festive holiday fixture period is becoming less and less festive by the day. Today, Football.London Crystal Palace correspondent Mark Wyatt reported via Twitter that tomorrow’s Boxing Day fixture between Tottenham Hotspur and Palace is now POSTPONED due to an outbreak of COVID-19 positive cases in the Palace matchday squad.

According to the report, two members of Palace’s backroom staff have tested positive in addition to the small number of previously disclosed positive tests within the Palace playing squad. That doesn’t sound like much, but if the match is being called off that must mean that they believe that additional positive cases are forthcoming in the coming hours.

Interestingly, the match postponement has not been officially declared by the Premier League, but it’s probably only a matter of time now. The postponement would be Tottenham’s fourth match in hand, which means a super compressed schedule later on in the spring, though Spurs dropping out of the Europa Conference League will add a number of dates that can be used to make up games.

The postponement would also mean that, due to other postponements also for COVID-19 reasons, the “full day” of Boxing Day fixtures will be reduced to just five matches, with another match on Monday. Naturally, we’ll wait for the official announcement.

Merry Christmas, everyone.