Medical expert suggests total Tottenham shut down after late night development
Tottenham could be “very, very close” to shutting down the entire training ground to combat the Covid-19 outbreak at Hotspur Way.
That is the view of Football Insider expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries website and has a background in medicine and data analysis.
Speaking at his press conference on Wednesday (8 December), as quoted by journalist Dan Kilpatrick, Antonio Conte confirmed eight players and five staff members have tested positive for Covid.
The club announced last night that the first-team area of the training ground had been shut and that tonight’s Europa Conference match against Stade Rennais had been postponed.
Dinnery suggested the initial news of six positive tests among the playing staff was “manageable”.
However, he suggested the increased numbers could lead to the training ground being closed.
Dinnery told Football Insider’s Russell Edge: “With the names touted on Tuesday, the impact, it was manageable. Not ideal, but manageable.
“Conte makes a great point. Yes, players are tested. That gives you a positive or a negative result at that moment in time.
“So just because a player tests negative, hours later, following training, following contact, just by living your life, that doesn’t mean that that you’re not going to test positive further down the line.
“So that’s the worry and that’s a concern. You now need to start to consider at what point do we just draw a line under this. Say: ‘Right, we close down all the training pitches, go through a deep clean.’
“You separate everybody, you get people to work individually and keep those contacts down to a minimum.
“The way it’s going, I think we’re very, very close to that.”
Spurs face the prospect of three games in the space of a week.
They face Rennes on Thursday (9 December) before visiting Brighton and Leicester City.
In other news, 24-year-old is “100 per cent” planning to quit Tottenham in January.