West Brom v Newcastle in greater doubt as Covid outbreak continues

Steve Bruce’s side saw their match at Villa postponed on Friday after a ‘significant increase’ in cases of Covid-19 at the club.

Their training ground, known as Darsley Park, was closed all of last week, but had been expected to reopen on Monday.

While Newcastle have done everything they can to try and stop the spread of the virus, numbers have still risen, according to reports.

And it is understood the Premier League side are reluctant to ask players and staff to return until they are certain all those who have the virus are isolating.

According to reports, Newcastle’s squad has been hit so hard they would struggle to put out a team against Albion this Saturday.

Bruce is also believed to be concerned about the welfare of his players because they haven’t been unable to train properly for more than a week.

Newcastle’s players did undergo further coronavirus tests on Monday, however.

And the situation will be reviewed again on Tuesday to see if the players can return to training either this afternoon or tomorrow.

Those results will also determine if the Premier League will allow them to postpone a second successive fixture.

But Public Health England, Newcastle City Council and other local government agencies are liaising with club officials and could prevent them from reopening the training ground even if test results improve.

That would leave the Premier League with no option but to rearrange the Albion game as Newcastle would not be able to train at all before the match.

Albion are monitoring events, but for Slaven Bilic and his players it is a case as business as usual with the team preparing for the game as if it is going ahead.

Meanwhile, Semi Ajayi has promised Albion won’t let their heavy loss against Crystal Palace affect them in their upcoming games.

The Baggies fell apart after Matheus Pereira received a first-half red card and went on to lose the match against Roy Hodgson’s side 5-1.

“Going down to 10 men changed things massively, but I don’t think it should’ve had as much of an effect on our performance as it did,” Ajayi said.

“We need to put this result behind us because there’s a lot more to play for this season.

“We can’t let a result like this derail our season.

“We know we weren’t good enough. We will work hard to improve and hopefully we will be a lot stronger next week.”