Crystal Palace have been dealt a blow ahead of their Boxing Day clash with Tottenham Hotspur as manager Patrick Vieira revealed that some of his players tested positive for Covid-19 this week.
The Frenchman was speaking to the media on Friday afternoon to preview his side's clash against Spurs and announced that a handful of players had not trained and have been isolating as a result of returning positive tests.
The Eagles were hit with a small number of cases within their staff last week but at that time all of the playing squad had returned negative tests. Vieira admitted he wasn't sure where the latest cases left Palace in terms of their trip to Spurs and described the scenario at the club as being "worrying".
"We hope that we are going to be OK," said the Frenchman.
"But when you are looking at the number of cases around we are started to be worried. We had a couple of cases in the football club in the last few days.
"We have tried our best to prevent all these kinds of situations but it is worrying. The evolution for the next couple of days we don't know how it will go."
The Palace boss was also asked in the press conference what his thoughts were on player welfare, with the congested fixture list regularly sparking debate into how much players are asked to play over the festive period.
Vieira - who said he "always loved" playing games at Christmas as a player - added that he was less worried about the fixture list and more the pressure put on players coming back from isolation and having to play with very little training.
He also complained that current Premier League guidance around postponing matches was confusing, and called on there to be clearer instructions for clubs for when these instances occur.
"We understand the Covid situation and some teams have been hit by it but every club is different," he added.
"There's no clear guidance of rules about why those games have been cancelled. We may need to have more information about what is going on. You will have teams playing three games and some teams playing none. It's not clear enough."
Crystal Palace are set to take on Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium live on BT Sport on Boxing Day.
