Man City's highly-anticipated showdown against Chelsea this weekend is expected to go ahead as planned, according to the Sun, after fears of a COVID-19 breakout at the Etihad Stadium put the Stamford Bridge trip under heavy doubt.
On Christmas Day, it was confirmed that Gabriel Jesus and Kyle Walker, as well as two staff members, had contracted the coronavirus and were thus forced to isolate from the team. However, it appeared that the virus had spread through Guardiola's squad, with many others testing positive for the virus on the day of their Everton showdown.
As a result, the Citizens submitted a request to the Premier League for that Tuesday fixture to be postponed, which was accepted, much to the anger of the Toffees. Further tests were taken in order to determine whether their weekend and midweek clashes with Chelsea and Man Utd in the EPL and Carabao Cup semis, respectively, would go ahead as planned.
A round of negative results came back, meaning Guardiola can continue his preparations for their upcoming tests. Man City's training ground has since re-opened but the squad will be subject to two more rounds of testing before Sunday's clash with Lampard's men.
With two games in hand, victory over Chelsea could see De Bruyne and Co. leap into fourth – they'd require Everton to lose their weekend fixture as well as a slip-up from Aston Villa and Spurs for this to occur. The Citizens are on 26 points after 14 games, level with the Blues thanks in part to a poor run of games from Lampard's men.
The London giants find themselves under tremendous pressure, having picked up only one win from their last five league fixtures, with three ending in defeats. As a result, the odds of Lampard getting sacked have skyrocketed thanks in part to his misfiring mega-money summer signings such as Timo Werner and Kai Havertz.
