Steven Gerrard ‘100 per cent’ certain that Aston Villa’s Boxing Day clash with Chelsea will go ahead

Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard says that he is ‘100 per cent’ certain that Villa’s Boxing Day clash with Chelsea will go ahead though did acknowledge that things can change rapidly at this current moment in time.

The claret & blue’s last match on December 18 with Burnley was postponed due to a Covid outbreak in the Villa camp and it wasn’t until 10:30am on the morning of the game that the situation had become clear that Gerrard wouldn’t be able to field a full squad.

And that’s why the boss remains cautious but at the time of his presser, had no worries from an Aston Villa perspective of another postponement.

“The Covid situation is changing on a daily basis, even in my world on an hourly basis,” Gerrard said.

“We’ve got mixed news on the Covid front, we have a few playing staff returning - we had one yesterday and one today returning (22 December).

“And a couple of staff members returning in the next 24 hours.

“I suppose that’s positive news.

“But we also had a false positive that had gone in our way in the last 24 hours.

“And we’ve also had a positive situation in the last two days as well.

“So it’s very mixed, it’s an ongoing situation, we’ve still got three rounds of testing to go before the game.

“Three lateral flows and a PCR test to come as well.

“If you’re asking for any team news and my thoughts on a team, you’re wasting your team, I don’t even know myself.

“Right now the game, from our point of view is 100 per cent.

“The rules of the PL is that if you have 13 fit and available players the game goes ahead, so as we stand, we’re looking forward to and preparing for the game. We’ll go ahead.

“What I am saying is, there’s still three or four days to go.

“Things are changing by the hour as we all know.

“Expect things to change.”

A message from the editor:

Thank you for reading. BirminghamWorld is Birmingham’s latest news website, championing everything that is great about our city - reporting on news, lifestyle and sport. We want to start a community among our readers, so please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and keep the conversation going.