VILLA IN CHAOS

almost certainly having to forfeit the tie. The FA stress they will make every effort to reschedule the game, but that would appear impossible given the fixture congestion.

Villa and the FA were in talks last night after a “significant number of positive tests” forced the shutdown of Villa’s training complex.

The decision came hours after Shrewsbury’s tie at Southampton bit the dust because the virus had rocked the League One side’s squad and staff.

Villa players and staff took their routine tests at training on Monday and trained again on Tuesday before an unusually high return of positive tests.

They had been testing for months and previously had seen less than a handful of positive results. Players and staff were retesting and sent home to isolate.

Yesterday morning a scheduled press conference by Smith (below) via Zoom was switched from the morning to the afternoon, then cancelled as the club sprang into action to deal with the shock news that the retests returned even more positive results.