Newcastle’s clash with Bournemouth at St James’ Park on Saturday is currently set to go ahead, with only three London-based games at risk of postponement due to the Queen’s funeral next Monday.
This comes after our proposed trip to West Ham was called off in light of Her Majesty’s death, however The Athletic and The Mirror report that all fixtures outside of London are ’expected’ to go ahead this weekend.
The EFL have already confirmed that their next round of games, set to begin on Tuesday, will go ahead as planned, with the Premier League expected to follow suit.
With the fixture list already piling up due to a winter World Cup beginning in November, a postponement of two rounds of fixtures is the last thing Premier League managers will want in what has a been a hectic last few seasons.
As the funeral is to be held in London, games that are to be played in the capital – Chelsea v Liverpool, Brentford v Arsenal and Tottenham v Leicester – are facing postponement, meaning some teams may not play another game until the beginning of October due to the upcoming international break.
There has been some suggestions that games could be played elsewhere – Tottenham v Leicester for example could be played in Leicester instead – but it would require clubs hosting a game at very short notice and is unlikely to prove popular.
No official announcement has been made by the Premier League as of yet, but Newcastle are hopeful that they can get their campaign back up and running on Saturday afternoon against the Cherries.
