Aston Villa v Burnley postponed hours before kick-off after more Covid-19 cases

Five out of six games scheduled for Saturday called off

Aston Villa's match against Burnley on Saturday was postponed hours before kick-off. Reuters

The Premier League continued to feel the pressure of mounting Covid-19 positive results on Saturday as Aston Villa's match against Burnley got postponed just hours before kick-off.

Villa's home game had to be rescheduled after more cases were detected in their squad.

"After reviewing all the new information provided by Aston Villa this morning and receiving separate medical advice, the Board approved the request as a result of the club not having enough players to field a team," the league said in a statement.

"This decision was based on the number of Covid-19 cases, injuries and illness."

The postponement means just one match remains from the six that were scheduled to take place on Saturday. Leeds against Arsenal looks likely to be the only fixture that will go ahead as scheduled.

It has been a rough week for the Premier League. Six of the ten games scheduled to take place on Saturday and Sunday have been called off, taking the total number of postponed top-flight matches over the past week to ten.

Earlier, pressure mounted on the league to suspend this weekend’s entire schedule following a raft of coronavirus-enforced postponements. The English Football League was also badly hit by the latest wave of infections across the country, with 14 games affected across its three divisions.