Saints players will not be at Staplewood for the rest of the week at least, but will follow individual training programmes at home.

Given that the return of the football programme is officially still over two weeks away and that date looks unlikely Saints have ordered their players to stay away from Staplewood and train at home.

Although the squad trained as normal on Monday and that none of them showed any signs of having contracted the virus, Saints have decided to err on the side of caution and have issued the following statement:

"Southampton Football Club would like to make supporters aware of a number of revised operation details, as the club takes sensible precautionary steps to help ensure the health and safety of its staff, fans and clients in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.

"Following the government guidance issued on Monday evening, Ralph Hasenhüttl’s squad have now been advised to follow individual fitness and conditioning programmes from home.

"Club medical and sports science staff will remain in regular contact with players and ensure they have the necessary equipment to maintain their fitness.

"Additionally, the club has advised all staff to work remotely where possible and will be limiting those on site at both St Mary’s and the training complex to essential personnel only."

Sensible precautions from Saints and it seems that the Government are now trying to steer the country into a gradual increase of restrictions which inevitably will lead to a period of lock down as in some European countries at the moment.

Although the situation is changing fast it seems to me that last week the authorities did not want to cause panic in the country so although last Thursday they did impose some sanctions and seemed to indicate that this was all that was needed for the time being, clearly they do have a more speedy plan, one that is not yet being fully communicated to the public in order to avoid panic and indeed panic buying.

I fear that that it will not be long before we are in full lockdown something that was beyond our wildest imaginations less than a month ago, unprecedented times.

The aim seems to be to try and slow down the onset of the virus so that the National Health Service and other agencies can have as much time as possible to be able to get themselves in a position to cope.

Some will still say that it is their choice whether to go out or not in defiance of any Government decree, but the other side of the story is that anyone who does that and contracts the virus will be a burden on the NHS which will be overstretched to the limits.

The message from The Ugly Inside is to stay safe and try to not do anything to put yourself in any danger.

Photo: Action Images

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