Leicester and Spurs forced to play as Premier League block dual plea to postpone

Brendan Rodgers has revealed that Leicester have failed in an attempt to get their Premier League fixture against Tottenham postponed.

And counterpart Antonio Conte says Spurs also sought to have Thursday night's encounter at the King Power re-arranged.

However, both were refused by Premier League chiefs.

The Foxes boss will be without nine players for his side's home game on Thursday due to Covid and illness-related issues.

And with Jonny Evans, Caglar Soyuncu and Daniel Amartey all set to miss out through injury - plus long-term absentee Wesley Fofana - he will be without any of his senior centre-backs.

Speaking on Wednesday, Rodgers revealed: "We have looked at that, unfortunately for us we were not granted any dispensation, which is obviously disappointing.

"We are a team and a club who have always wanted to support all measures and everything else but maybe when you need that bit of support with the extreme situation that we were in, we were not able to get that which was disappointing.

"But we have tried to maintain the training ground staying open and people functioned here. We were big doubt for the game against Newcastle with all the issues and problems that we had but for greater good of game and the supporters, we obviously played the game.

"But since then we have picked up a couple more injuries as well which are maybe not strictly from Covid but are certainly Covid-related because players who have been unavailable to play are having to play and pick up injuries because we can't rotate the squad and the team.

"We will put out the best team that we can. We will assess things game by game.

"If you look at the proximity of the games coming up, it is an incredible run of games and a challenging fixture list at any times when you have a full squad. But with the numbers we have it is extremely challenging.

"We'll try to get through it. We have always tried to respect the competition and again that is what we will do.

"But I'm sure there will have been games called off with less players than we have unavailable. It would be nice if there was a bit more clarity around the issue of how many players need to be unavailable. It is all a bit disappointing."

Opposite number Conte, speaking at the same time, revealed the Premier League also rejected Spurs' request to move the game - so that they could play their Europa League fixture with Rennes, which was postponed last week.

He said: "The Premier League didn't want to postpone the game, maybe because we have to play against Burnley and Brighton. We postponed two games before. I can understand, we can understand."

On Spurs' Covid situation, Conte added: "The situation has not changed so much. Players are back in training and other players are continuing to be selected. Those players who are back in training they need time to find the right physical condition.

"The Covid is not only 10 days and many times he brings with this virus a situation that you make your body not so strong. For this reason you have players injured after Covid."