Hartlepool United boss Dave Challinor lifts the lid on the difficulties facing managers with football on hold

All football has been suspended until April 30 at the earliest, with further clarity on that date expected this week with it set to be extended.

The Pools squad are training alone at home, with National League clubs, players and managers waiting to hear the next steps in terms of whether the season will be completed.

Challinor explained: "From a management perspective, it’s impossible to plan as no one has any real idea what is going on and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

"Even if a decision is reached regarding this season, the uncertainty and unpredictability would make it impossible to say when next season may start and as a consequence there will likely to be further fall out in the future.

"We’ve been unable to have physical contact with the players but as things have developed we’ve adapted our plan and schedule for them.

"We sent them a programme where we offloaded them a little bit last week and gave them three aerobic cv sessions to do over the week and they posted these on the WhatsApp group.

"They also had a lower limb strength session and a core session to keep them ticking over.

"This week, we’ve not set them anything to do formally but I’m sure all of them will do something everyday, most as it’s habit and they like to keep their levels right and I imagine most as they want to get out the house for some fresh air and some peace and quiet."

Challinor, writing in his blog on the club website, added: "The government, as we’d anticipated has introduced further measures upon us to control the spread of this pandemic and I think people are now treating this situation as very serious and giving it the attention it requires.

"It’s affecting everyone and everyone’s ‘normal’ life but what it will do I think is allow us to appreciate the lives we normally lead, our independence, our freedom and for everyone in my household, the impact that sport and particularly football play in our existence."