West Brom boss Valerien Ismael has his say on Thomas Frank’s call for postponements in the Premier League

West Bromwich Albion manager Valerien Ismael believes there is ‘no reason’ for postponement of football at any level as long as the the current protocols are being correctly followed.

This comes off the back of Brentford boss Thomas Frank calling for the next round of Premier League fixtures to be postponed in order to get the current rapid rise of coronavirus under control.

But Ismael says stopping an entire division from playing off the back of the struggles of a few clubs would make little sense.

“I think at the minute we are able to play” he explained.

“I think you need to take the games case by case. I think we can’t stop all around just because two or three teams struggle.

“Yes, when you’ve got an outbreak you need to make sure you avoid the spread of the virus so you need to take the right decision but if it’s only two or three isolated cases and you can get the things under control - there’s no reason with all the measures in place that you cannot carry on with the league.

“Last week it was a completely different situation with us because it was an outbreak but I think we managed it well regardless.

“Now we are in a better position when you compare for the last week. I think you need to see case by case.”

As Ismael touched on, it was only last week where his side had a mini outbreak of their own but their game against Reading still went ahead.

Cedric Kipre, Conor Townsend, Matthew Clarke & Semi Ajayi were all unavailable for selection after testing positive for coronavirus but the four were allowed back in training on Thursday and will come back into the squad for the trip to Barnsley.

There have been no fresh cases at Albion this week and the manager puts that down to the strict measures that they once again implemented from last week.

“Last week we changed our protocols, our medical staff” he added.

“Every day we test, wear face-masks around the place, (keep our) distances.

“We knew the rule from last year and I think this is the reason we got a lot of things under control. We had a better feeling now but it was due to our previous experience in place.”

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