Tottenham blasts postponement of match with Arsenal

The North London Derby between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal set to be played Sunday was instead postponed by the Premier League on Saturday.

Arsenal requested the match be postponed due to "a combination of COVID-19, existing and recent injuries and players on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations," the Premier League said in a statement.

"We are extremely surprised that this application has been approved," Tottenham Hotspur said in a statement Saturday. "The original intention of the guidance - here - was to deal with player availability directly affected by COVID cases, resulting in depleted squads that, when taken together with injuries, would result in the club being unable to field a team. We do not believe it was the intent to deal with player availability unrelated to COVID.

"We may now be seeing the unintended consequences of this rule."

Tottenham Hotspur apologized to fans in the statement for the "unacceptably short notice" of the postponement.

Arsenal was set to play with a severely depleted squad, although many of the pending absences had nothing to do with COVID-19. Mohamed Elneny, Thomas Partey, Nicolas Pepe, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are all competing in the Africa Cup of Nations, Cedric Soares, Bukayo Saka, and Calum Chambers are recovering from injuries, and Granit Xhaka received a red card against Liverpool on Thursday.