After almost a year and a half of football in abnormal circumstances, football in the UK at least seemed to be back to normal but dark clouds have started appearing on the horizon again. There are 4,713 confirmed cases of the new Omicron variant and modelling figures suggest the current number of daily infections was around 200,000. Omicron has risen to more than 44% of cases in London and is expected to become the dominant variant in the city in the next 48 hours.

Football and the Premier League are not immune from society, and are now starting to get affected by this new variant. Tottenham Hotspur have had a large section of their playing and backroom staff affected by COVID. Covid-stricken Spurs saw their last two fixtures - Thursday's Europa Conference League match against Rennes and Sunday's trip to Brighton, postponed because of a coronavirus outbreak among players and staff.

Manchester United had to close their training ground at Carrington to minimize the COVID threat after facing an outbreak among their staff and players. That led to their game against Brentford being postponed.

Other cases of players and staff being affected have been reported at Arsenal and Aston Villa, leaving the Premier League schedule in disarray. The league announced on Monday that 42 players and club officials had tested positive for coronavirus in the seven days that ended on Sunday – a record for a single week since testing began.

The busy festive period in the Premier League, which normally provides huge entertainment for football fans around the world now poses a massive problem in light of the COVID outbreak in the UK. The Premier League have had to postpone a few fixtures already, and will find it tough to accommodate them. More of those postponements during the festive period will be a challenge for the organisers, and the affected clubs and their players.