The Athletic reveal how NUFC vs West Brom is also at risk of being postponed – Here’s why…

After Friday night’s trip to Aston Villa was called off due to COVID concerns, The Athletic have now revealed how next weekend’s clash with West Brom is far from certain.

With the first team set up being placed in quarantine following a coronavirus outbreak at Benton, there are now fresh fears as to whether next Saturday’s game could be impacted due to self-isolation procedures.

The current required period is 10 days on the basis that a negative test is then returned, but that doesn’t factor in concerns that more members of the Newcastle United squad could be tested positive over the coming days.

The Athletic state that it is still ‘hoped’ that next weekend’s game can still go ahead, but it will soon be cast into doubt if the spread within the squad proves to be worse than initially feared and the club fail to control the outbreak in good time.

Here’s a snippet from their latest piece:

“Newcastle’s next scheduled match is against West Bromwich Albion at St James’ Park on Saturday, December 12.

“It is hoped that the fixture will go ahead as planned but, with a self-isolation period being for a minimum of 10 days and then requiring a negative test, as well as the possibility of further cases being confirmed in the coming days, it entirely depends on just how significant the scale of the outbreak is and if Newcastle can get it sufficiently under control in time.”

If the West Brom game gets postponed, then it looks as though we could be set for a spontaneous ‘winter break’ of our own.

Obviously, we shouldn’t wish for that to happen, and there are huge downsides to not training as a team for 10 days, especially after a big win, but with some managers in the division screaming about fixture congestion and injuries this could actually be turned into an unlikely positive for NUFC.

We don’t play in Europe so these fixtures can easily be kicked down the road as a midweek game somewhere down the line. My only fear is that they will be rescheduled right in the thick of the festive period which has a game every other day as it is.

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