Portsmouth Q&A: The key details about ongoing Covid situation, visit to Plymouth Argyle taking place, financial impact on club and how scenario could help squad

Pepe Lacey is joined by chief sports writer Neil Allen to discuss the ongoing coronavirus situation at Fratton Park in the latest Pompey Q&A.

What are the key details surrounding Covid and Pompey at the moment?

‘I had a long chat with Andy Cullen yesterday about the situation, the ongoing developments at Fratton Park regarding Covid.

‘As we know the last three games have been called off through coronavirus in the Pompey camp. I did ask Andy Cullen how many players had been affected, he declined to reveal numbers but he did say it was a significant amount of Pompey players.

‘We know this is the case as Pompey are unable to fulfill the EFL criteria of 14 available players for duty, which is 13 outfield players and one goalkeeper.

‘Now the Blues have been unable to field there in the last three matches, hence why they were called off.

‘So the next game we’re looking at is Plymouth on December 29, now you’d imagine with players isolating and coming through it a lot of those players will be back and available for selection, so hopefully that game can take place.

‘If you take it from the positive tests on Thursday that Boxing Day was always going to be tough for Pompey to fulfill - and that’s how it proved.’

Looking at the Plymouth game, is there a cloud looming over the tie and when should we know if the game will go ahead or not?

‘It’s far too early to say, the game is on the 29th, so we’ve got nearly a week to go but those players who have self-isolated from last Thursday you’d imagine they would be available naturally through the isolation period. That’s if there are not any new cases in the camp.

‘Let’s not forget illness, which isn’t Covid related, has also affected some of the players over the last few weeks so that’s been going on as well as some injured players.

‘We’ve always talked about how small Pompey’s squad is even before the Covid outbreak so they had no chance really of fulfilling those last three fixtures, but hopefully we’ll see more bodies back.

‘We can talk about it in a weeks time, you can’t predict whether this latest variant will continue to double in size and increase or maybe even reduce, we just don’t know at this stage.

‘There’s more likelihood of that going ahead than there was Boxing Day against Oxford.’

Pompey’s Papa John’s game has been moved to January 7, with no date for the Wimbledon and Oxford games confirmed yet. Going into January there’s going to be a lot of fixture congestion, how do you think the Pompey squad and Danny Cowley will manage that?

‘It was interesting to see the Exeter game in the Papa John’s Trophy moved to a Friday rather than a Saturday, and that’s because both felt having it on a Friday would be beneficial to give them a day’s rest for the following round which happens on the Tuesday.

‘So they’re playing Friday and Tuesday feeling it would be more beneficial than Saturday and Tuesday.

‘In regards to mid-week games, there’s been a lot in the first half of the season especially with some games on a Saturday not taking place.

‘In the second half of the season it’s not as busy, so they’ve got space to spread them out although lets not forget this season for League One finishes a week earlier than the other divisions.

‘There’s plenty of space to put them in, but Pompey are used to playing a lot of mid-week games.

‘It’s just about the size of the squad and hopefully injured players like Tunnicliffe, Robertson and Thompson can come back soon and bolster the squad to give Cowley a few more options with these games coming up.’

The EFL have been very vocal about how they want the season to carry on, so is this going to become a regular thing where we see games postponed?

Pompey have been heavily affected by Covid and their fixtures with three games off, but Andy Cullen agrees with the EFL about not pausing the season and putting in a circuit breaker for two weeks – so just see when you can play.

‘He could easily moan and groan say pause the season and everyone will be alright in a few weeks, but he thinks fixtures should be fulfilled and to see how that pans out. It’s a fair point because sometimes in winter games are called off through snow and frozen pitches - last season the trip to Accrington in January was called off because of a frozen pitch and nothing to do with Covid.

‘This time of year games do get postponed and it happens but obviously not to the extent of three in a week to Covid. The idea is to continue with matches when teams can and when they’re able.

‘I did find it interesting that Pompey did agree with the stance of the EFL, and the really important point that Andy Cullen did raise is that the danger is if you pause the season now you deprive the clubs of Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and bank holiday games – where clubs can make a lot of money, as it is the best part of the season for them.

‘Also some clubs can fulfill the games because. They haven’t got Covid outbreaks, so saying to them you can’t play on Boxing Day even though everyone is fit – they're going to ultimately miss out on a financial windfall.

‘In Pompey’s case they had a sold out Fratton Park for Sunday, corporate was sold out, tickets sold out, Oxford end was nearly full and there was going to be more than 17 thousand in this restricted capacity - and that’s gone now.

‘The rearranged game will be mid-week, reduced capacity by 1,300 seats and mid-week games are never as well attended, so they’re not going to get as much money

‘So you have that financial side to it as well. You don’t want to say to clubs we don’t want to play on Boxing Day while we get rid of Covid, because it will hurt them financially.’

From a fans and business point of view, both would be eager to find out whether games would be played behind closed doors with the possibility of restrictions coming in. How do you see that situation panning out?

‘I think people need to understand that it’s all from the government, they stipulate whether games take place behind closed doors, they stipulate whether Covid passports are required and it’s nothing to do with the football clubs.

‘I’ve seen some people say to Pompey about Covid passports, but it’s nothing to do with the club they have to abide by that if they want to keep the game on so it all comes down from the government.

‘We don’t know what the government are going to do, they have to follow the science and we can only go off what they say, so we don’t know.

‘But ultimately the club has to do what it is told by the government to put on football matches, so we wait and see and it’s very difficult to predict in this moment of time.’