Manchester City players have headed off for their winter break as the club looks to rearrange the West Ham game.
The travel and safety problems caused by Storm Ciara meant that the final match before a fortnight off was called off. It leaves Pep Guardiola with an even bigger fixture headache as he faces up to the possibility of three weeks without a game before playing three times a week for the rest of the season.
The Premier League have previously told clubs not to organise any games in their allotted time off - even if fans would rather get it out of the way rather than add to the match congestion coming later. The fixture could be rearranged in time for next week if the Premier League deems the circumstances extraordinary enough and both clubs are satisfied with the arrangements.
But those are some big ifs. The difficulties of sorting out the game being put on again are many while West Ham may prefer a later date for their scheduling.
There is also a desire to respect the winter break. Because of that, both City and West Ham players are only due back to their respective training grounds on Saturday after five days of rest and those plans are not expected to change because of Sunday's postponement.
Guardiola had been sceptical about the timing of the mid-season pause even before the game was called off as part of his general complaints about the football calendar.
"You always start with two games and have a lot of games and then in one part of the season have one just game a week, then two or three," he said last month.
“We are going to rest in February for one week so in three weeks we have two games but then we have 72 games in one week so it’s a bit strange. But the people thought about that.
"We need less games, less competitions, less teams, more quality, less quantity. The people are going to go to the theatre, to the cinema, restaurants, to watch the fireworks. That is what they would do."
