CITY BLOW AHEAD OF SPURS CLASH

 

Pep Guardiola could be without the services of one of his players for the crunch Premier League clash with Tottenham Hotspur at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday evening. The player in question is Oleksandr Zinchencko who’s on national team duty with Ukraine.

Zinchencko is a midfielder by trade but he has been playing as a left-back for the Citizens for two years and counting. He is an important member of the Ukrainian national team squad under the stewardship of Ukrainian football legend Andriy Shevchencko. Oleksandr Zinchencko could miss the Spurs game this weekend after the entire Ukraine team went into isolation upon the news that three players tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday.

Yevhen Makarenko, Eduard Sobol and DymtroRiznyk all tested positive for the virus. This development led to self-isolation for the players and staff. The Ukranians were already in Switzerland to face the Swiss team in their last game in League A Group D of the UEFA Nations League before the game was postponed some hours before the kick-off time set for Tuesday evening.

Riznyk, Makarenko and Sobol are the not the first set of Ukraine national team players to test positive for Covid-19. West Ham United star Andriy Yarmolenko had tested positive for the virus last week alongside three other players and a member of staff, VadymKomadin.

National team players Viktor Kovalenko, SerhiiSydorchuk and Viktor Tsyhankov all returned positive Covid-19 results alongside the aforementioned Yarmolenko. It remains to be seen whether Yarmolenko and Zinchencko would be involved for West Ham United and Manchester City respectively in the Premier League this weekend.

The Hammers have an away game at bottom club Sheffield United in the Premier League when the international window ends. The Blades are without a win in eight league outings and they have just one solitary point from those games.