Manchester United close first-team training ground amid Covid outbreak

• Club in talks with Premier League over game at Brentford
• United delay travel to London as they await decision

Manchester United has shuttered the first-team part of their Carrington training complex for 24 hours following positive Covid tests among players and staff, and has postponed travel to Brentford for Tuesday’s Premier League match until a decision is made on whether the game will go ahead.

Following Saturday’s 1-0 win over Norwich City, United discovered a limited number of cases via lateral flow tests, and training on Monday was canceled due to PCR test confirmation.

A club statement said: “The decision has been taken to close down first-team operations at the Carrington training complex for 24 hours to minimise the risk of any further infection. Individuals who tested positive are being isolated per Premier League protocols.

“Given cancellation of training and disruption to the squad, and with the health of players and staff the priority, the club is in discussion with the Premier League whether it is safe for Tuesday’s fixture against Brentford to continue, both from a Covid infection and player preparation perspective. Team and staff travel to London will be deferred pending the result of that discussion.”

Tottenham’s games with Rennes and Brighton were postponed because of Covid, and Leicester had several players unavailable for Sunday’s match against Newcastle because of the virus.

When Spurs closed the first-team area of their training ground last Wednesday after discussions with the Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England) and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport advisers, the next steps were the postponements of their Europa Conference League home tie against Rennes on Thursday and the Premier League visit to Brighton on Sunday. The Premier League treats every case for a postponement on its specific merits.

The scale of the Covid problem facing the Premier League was underlined on Monday when Graham Potter said there were “three or four” positive tests among his Brighton squad before Wednesday’s visit of Wolves and Steven Gerrard reported that two Aston Villa players and two staff members had the virus before their game at Norwich.

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Tottenham are preparing for Thursday’s Premier League game at Leicester to go ahead after non-infected players returned to the training ground on Sunday and the first squad members who had tested positive went back on Monday.

Spurs face being made to forfeit the Rennes tie 3-0, which would see them exit the Conference League. Uefa’s control, ethics and disciplinary body is to meet – possibly this week – to rule on what should happen after Spurs and Rennes were unable to find a date to re-stage the game before the end of the month, which was the official cut-off. There is an outside chance that they could find a solution to play the tie in January after the busy December programme and the French league winter break, although the forfeit is considered to be the most likely outcome.