Pundit Kris Boyd doesn’t think Celtic’s match against Aberdeen should go ahead next weekend after eight Dons stars entered self-isolation this week, The Scottish Sun reports.
After socialising in Aberdeen restaurants and bars last week, two first-team squad members at Pittodrie tested positive for coronavirus, with six more of the group having to self-isolate.
Their actions have drawn criticism from many in the Scottish game and beyond, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon even commenting publicly with some stern words.
The drama also led to the Dons’ fixture against St Johnstone being postponed this weekend.
However, subsequent games against Hamilton and Celtic over the next seven days are still due to go ahead despite a 14-day isolation period.
The Dons could be severely depleted for both matches as a result.
Boyd isn’t happy with the situation, feeling all three games should have been cancelled.
As quoted by The Scottish Sun, he said: “St Johnstone should be the next game for Aberdeen. Andrew Considine was going to be suspended and they had eight players missing.
“Now all of a sudden St Johnstone are going to miss out on that and Hamilton might benefit.
“We hear about sporting integrity in Scottish football but we can’t let the game go ahead.
“Aberdeen’s next two games have to be cancelled. The next game they should play is St Johnstone on August 20.”
I’m not entirely convinced by Boyd’s argument here.
In fact, I don’t think anyone should be calling for games to be called off right now considering the potential fixture scheduling chaos it could cause.
With Celtic playing in Europe, there are hardly any upcoming windows for game rearrangement and the last thing we need is for the Celtic Park clash to be called off.
I understand that the circumstances are far from ideal but we simply have to play games when teams are available.
I’m not sure the concept of sporting integrity applies here in the way that Boyd thinks it does.
Regardless, it’s going to be very interesting to see how the week pans out on this matter.
In other news, Neil Lennon has responded to Christopher Jullien’s poor performance against Kilmarnock today.
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