Aston Villa hit by Covid-19 outbreak before Norwich clash

Aston Villa were forced to cancel training on Sunday after a number of players and staff members tested positive for Covid-19.

Numerous clubs up and down the country have recorded high numbers of positive cases of late, with Tottenham and Queens Park Rangers being hit harder than most and seeing games postponed because of outbreaks.

The next side to be hit by a high number of positive tests was Villa, whom The Athletic note were forced to cancel training on Sunday in an attempt to prevent a mass outbreak.

One player is understood to have tested positive, with the rest of the cases being among staff members. It is not yet clear whether the player involved featured during the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool on Saturday.

Cancelling the training session - a small recovery activity for a handful of players - was more of a preventative measure and there is no suggestion that there have been enough positive cases to justify cancelling Tuesday's trip to Norwich.

Manchester United's preparation for their own meeting with Norwich at the weekend was disrupted by a handful of Covid-19 cases, although the Red Devils are believed to have picked up on all the positives in time to isolate them ahead of the game, which ended 1-0 in United's favour.

Tottenham were not so fortunate. They had to cancel their game against Brighton after a mass outbreak at the club, and after returning to training on Sunday, they found another mini-outbreak.

The Telegraph state that at least one more first-team player has tested positive, while there have been numerous cases detected in the Under-23s, which could leave manager Antonio Conte struggling to pull a squad together.

Conte could be left with as few as 13 senior players for Thursday's trip to Leicester, and if he wants to bump up his numbers, he will struggle to use the Under-23s and may have to drop down to the Under-18s in search of players.