(Reuters) – Arsenal defenders Pablo Mari, Calum Chambers and midfielder Albert Sambi Lokonga were ruled out for Tuesday’s League Cup quarter-final at home to Sunderland after testing positive for COVID-19, the Premier League club said before kickoff.
Midfielder Ainsley Maitland-Niles was absent due to illness not related to COVID-19, the club added.
The Premier League said on Monday that a record 90 new cases of COVID-19 were detected among players and staff in the past week, as clubs decided to press ahead with the busy festive fixture list despite the escalating crisis.
(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
