Steven Gerrard hints that vaccination status could be considered when signing players

Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard has said he will consider players’ vaccination status when identifying targets and making bids for possible signings in the upcoming January transfer window.

This comes after teams in the Premier League have had Covid outbreaks. Tottenham have had to have their UEFA Conference League game against Rennes postponed, and their Premier League game against Brighton was also called out.

Aside from Tottenham, Manchester United’s Premier League game against Brentford has been postponed due to a Covid outbreak in the Manchester camp, as was QPR’s fixture against Stoke in the Championship, due to the South London club also suffering from a Covid outbreak.

Speaking to highly regarded sports news outlet The Athletic when asked about Covid vaccines Gerrard said: “But we’ll obviously make decisions as and when we decide a certain person is the one who could come in and make us better. We’ll go through it with a fine-toothed comb. But I don’t think it’s right for me to comment on if I would or wouldn’t in that situation. But, it would certainly come into conversation’s in the background”

Villa have also had a slight Covid outbreak, with “a couple of positive cases” recorded among the Villa camp. Due to this, Gerrard has said that the vaccination process of a player will be a factor in his January recruitment process.

The Premier League confirmed, on Monday, that there were 42 new confirmed Coronavirus cases in the previous seven days, and it is the highest figure recorded since the Premier League started mass testing back during project restart in June 2020.

The highest figure was 16, before Monday’s figure of 42 became the highest recorded.

In his pre-match presser before his side face Norwich City, Gerrard said on the Covid situation:

“We’ve got a couple of cases on the playing side and we’ve got a couple of cases, positive on the staff side. Due to medical confidentiality, I’m not going to reveal any names.

“It’s obviously not what we wanted, but we’ll have to deal with situation and adapt. From a playing point of view, there will be opportunities for other people to come in and help us”

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