Premier League clubs are reportedly pushing for a festive break to try and combat the current Covid-19 outbreak.

Manchester Evening News report that Premier League clubs want to shut down matches until the FA Cup third round on January 7th, which would mean missing at least three rounds of matches in the meantime.

The situation with postponements is obviously getting a little out of control at the moment.

Four of Saturday’s six Premier League fixtures have already been cancelled, and it’s hard to say with any certainty that the other two will go ahead when games keep being called off so soon before they happen.

Mikel Arteta commented on the possibility of a break in his pre-Leeds United press conference, if only to say that he didn’t have the answer.

“I think there are people that know much more than I do to try and find out what the best solution is, to find out if we should carry on playing with the rules that we have at the moment or stop it,” Arteta answered.

“I don’t know, it’s not something that I want to give an opinion on because I’m not a scientist and I’m not a specialist and we have to rely on the government and the Premier League to try to make the best decision.”

The league is going to get complicated if certain clubs build up their games in hand whilst others play every week, and if teams keep infecting each other each matchday.

But it’s not clear that taking a break will solve that problem. It may just delay it, and reduce the time we have left to complete the season.

With the World Cup coming up next winter, we don’t have much wiggle room in the current season. I sense that the Premier League will push to keep playing as many games as they can for as long as it’s reasonable to do so.