Dave Challinor discusses Hartlepool United's coronavirus precautions as Manchester City v Arsenal Premier League match postponed after Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis tests positive

Arsenal’s match at Manchester City became the first Premier League match to be postponed due to the outbreak. Gunners’ players are self-isolating after coming into contact with Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis, who tested positive for the virus this week.

While no National League matches appear under immediate threat at this stage, precautions have been imposed involving no pre-match handshakes until further notice.

And when discussing such precautions, the Pools boss was quick to joke: “None of our players shake hands anyway – I’ve made a conscious effort not to strangle people!

“You can think and overthink things, everyone reads the news and everyone looks at what the things are.

“I think there was a joke around it about the soap in the toilets [at Victoria Park] and things like that – I think there was a lot more of it at the ground on Saturday.

“I’ve been shopping and there wasn’t much toilet roll or hand spray around so everyone is going nuts for it.

“I think you’ve just got to stick with the general stuff that most people are doing. In most instances, washing your hands should be something you do anyway but maybe people are being a bit more vigilant compared to what they normally are.”

He added: “From our perspective, until we’re told something, we can try and do different things ourselves.

“There are league rules that they’re trying to put in place and we’ll go with that.

“You’ve got to let professionals deal with it and if we’re told to do certain things then we’ll do them.

“What you’d hope is that football isn’t affected but looking at the bigger picture, it’s important that the virus is controlled and what you don’t want is it to become a serious problem as it has in other countries.

“There are people who are paid to worry about this and come up with the best solutions so everyone is as safe as they can be.”