Friday, December 24, 2021 at 7:45 PM• Jeroen van Poppel • Last update: 20:01

Norwich City drafted a player who had a fever ten days ago in the game against Aston Villa (0-2 loss), Dean Smith, the manager of the Canaries. The player in question had a temperature of 39 degrees or even higher. “I take full responsibility for the fact that that game was not cancelled,” Smith said at the press conference.

Smith’s revelation of the Norwich player playing with a fever is extremely remarkable and deeply reprehensible. Exercising with a temperature increase is dangerous and can cause serious damage to the heart muscle or even deadly arrhythmias. In addition, it can slow down the recovery process from the acquired disease. “I tried to get the game postponed, but in hindsight I should have tried harder,” Smith said. “I think I’ve been talking to my medical staff more than anyone in the past few weeks.”

The corona virus has been spreading rapidly in the Premier League in the last month and Norwich City has not been spared that. The Premier League bottom line had to miss Lukas Rupp, Pierre Lees-Melou, Christos Tzolis and Josh Sargent ten days ago due to a corona infection and urged the organization of the competition to postpone the game. Norwich, however, got a nil on the bill and then lost to Aston Villa.

Immediately after the game, Smith, who strongly disagreed with the game going ahead, said that the Premier League magic number must determine the minimum amount of corona cases at a club to postpone a match. At the moment it is not entirely clear where that limit lies for the Premier League. Norwich did see his away game against West Ham United on December 18 cancelled, but the home game against Arsenal on Boxing Day will continue for the time being. In the meantime, three matches scheduled for Boxing Day have already been canceled with Liverpool – Leeds United, Wolverhampton Wanderers – Watford and Burnley – Everton.