By Andrew Warshaw
January 6 – English Premier League clubs are under pressure to do more to ensure their players follow the country’s coronavirus protocols after a record 40 positive tests – more than double the previous weekly high – were revealed in the latest figures released.
January 6 – Former England and Manchester City midfielder Colin Bell, widely regarded as one of the finest players of his generation, has died aged 74 following a short illness, the Premier League side said.
January 5 – Professional football in the UK will continue behind closed doors despite the country being plunged into yet another national lockdown but almost all grassroots sport will cease, heaping even more pressure on non-league clubs.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 4 – What planet do they think they’re on? Just as the UK is battling a dangerous spike in Covid-19 cases, so English Premier League players continue to flout the rules, heaping embarrassment on their clubs and, as the epithet goes, bringing the game into disrepute – at least at elite level.
By David Owen
January 4 – Chelsea may be having an up and down time on the pitch at present. But the West London club have achieved something that few of their Premier League opponents will manage, by reporting a reasonable profit for the covid-blighted 2019-20 season.
December 22 – The English Premier League has confirmed seven new positive coronavirus tests in its latest round of testing conducted between December 14-20 on 1,569 Premier League players and staff.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 18 – La Liga has it, so does the Bundesliga, Serie A and France’s Ligue1. But the self-interested, blinkered approach of half of England’s top-flight clubs has once again been starkly exposed after they rejected for the third time a proposal to re-introduce five substitutes per team per game for the remainder of the season.
December 18 – English Premier League clubs have agreed to make up to two concussion substitutions per match from next month in a radical new rule change to protect players from serious head injury.
December 15 – No sooner had a limited number of fans been allowed back at a number of Premier League fixtures than London matches have been forced back behind closed doors after the capital was placed in the toughest tier of COVID-19 restrictions following a sharp rise in infection rates.
December 4 – After months of negotiations, the Premier League and English Football League, which covers the three division immediately below the top flight, have agreed a £250 million rescue package to help ease the financial burden on lower-league clubs caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
December 4 – Fans returning to English Premier League games this weekend will have to wear face masks at all times and have been banned from over-excessive singing or chanting to avoid Covid-19 transmission.
December 3 – Arsenal vs Rapid Vienna on a cold Thursday evening in the Europa League’s group stage with nothing at stake may not be the most glamorous occasion, but this dead rubber will take on significance for the club’s faithful and the wider English sporting community as Arsenal will host 2,000 fans at the match, the first Premier League club to welcome back fans since the coronavirus shutdown.
December 2 – Just as a limited number of fans are being allowed back into top-flight English games this coming weekend, so the unpredictability of Covid-19 has starkly hit home with Newcastle United’s game at Aston Villa on Friday becoming the first Premier League fixture this season to be postponed because of the disease.
December 1 – Newcastle United’s entire first-team squad have been forced to self-isolate as the Premier League club closed its training ground amid a growing Covid-19 outbreak.
November 30 – Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Mexican striker Raul Jimenez has undergone surgery on a fractured skull after a sickening first-half clash of heads in his team’s 2-1 win over Arsenal on Sunday.