Sam’s pig sick as Rovers hit by swine flu
BLACKBURN’S Carling Cup tie against Peterborough tonight will go ahead despite boss Sam Allardyce confirming that a third player has contracted swine flu.
Rovers were without defender Christopher Samba and midfielder David Dunn for the 5-0 defeat at Chelsea at Saturday, both suspected of having the H1N1 virus.
Allardyce admitted after the game that five or six other members of his squad have also shown similar symptoms but said yesterday that a third, unidentified, member of his squad had also caught the virus.
The Rovers chief revealed the extent of the problem at Ewood Park when questioned whether Samba and Dunn were the initial sufferers.
“It’s definitely swine flu – you’ve speculated on the names and I’ll leave it at that,”?Allardyce said.
“We have had one more case this morning, one more player and there are a couple of staff. Other than that, the others that we left behind are recovering well but not available for tomorrow.” There were suggestions that Rovers were seeking special dispensation from the Football League to have the tonight’s home fourth round tie postponed, but Allardyce insisted that was never an option.
“We knew we couldn’t get the game called off because we were told way back in February or March when we took some guidelines that unless there was some government legislation, everybody had to do whatever they had to do. If there was a swine flu outbreak, you couldn’t call a game off, no matter what. We fulfilled our responsibility by confirming two cases of swine flu and we made the same call to Chelsea.”
Allardyce added that he feared Chelsea players could have contracted the virus as a result of playing his team. “There is no doubt about that,” he said. “When you look at the medical side of it, it is one of the most infectious viruses we have had. They are not going to stop it, are they?”
Sunday’s French Ligue 1 match between Paris St Germain and Marseilles was postponed after it was revealed three PSG players had contracted swine flu.