Tottenham Hotspur correspondent Jack Pitt-Brooke has been speaking on The View From The Lane’s latest podcast to discuss a development that may benefit the Lilywhites next month.
According to The Athletic reporter, Premier League players from red-list countries could see their quarantine rules relaxed ahead of October’s international break.
Were you annoyed the trio left for international duty?
Yes
No
This will be music to the ears of Tottenham fans, who saw their club without Giovani Lo Celso, Cristian Romero and Davinson Sanchez for a large part of September due to the existing quarantine rules.
The Spurs trio travelled to their red-listed nations earlier in the month to participate in their World Cup qualifiers, but ultimately ended up missing the emphatic 3-0 defeat against Crystal Palace.
Discussing how a new relaxation of the rules may be introduced ahead of next month’s international break, Pitt-Brooke had the following to say on how it could benefit Spurs.
“Basically, I’ve heard that the government has come up with some new plans for the quarantine rules for South American and let’s just say African players coming back from playing red-list countries in the October break.
‘Now, at the moment, as we all know, those rules are that you have to do 10 days in hotel quarantine after coming back to England from a red-list country. Under the government’s new plans, you would have to do five days of isolation under the guidance or under the bubble of your club.
“So hypothetically, if this were to happen for Tottenham, Lo Celso, Romero and Sanchez would go off to South America, play their games, come back, do five days at Spurs Lodge I imagine, and then they will be eligible to play.
“Now, this hasn’t yet been confirmed as policy, but I’m told this has been circulated by DCMS to the Premier League clubs. So the clubs are under the impression that this will be the case for the October break.”
TIF Thoughts on the South American trio’s absence…
Nuno Espirito Santo was clearly left incredibly frustrated with the situation which panned out with this South American trio, who were forced to undergo their quarantine in Croatia before heading back to London.
The frustrations were highlighted in Tottenham’s defeat to Palace, when Eric Dier departed the game early on through injury and Japhet Tanganga was handed a second yellow card, leaving Joe Rodon as the only natural centre-back in the team.
Even with the trio returning for the Chelsea clash, they only arrived back in the country the day before the game, which meant they had one training session with the squad before facing the European champions.
If the rules Pitt-Brooke has alluded to do come into action, we think this will only prove to be a positive for Spurs, who would likely see their South American players’ period of quarantine effectively halve.
In other news: ‘Not a Prem player’, ‘Amazingly bad’ – Many Spurs fans destroy £28.8m-rated ‘liability’