Sam Allardyce has once again called for a football lockdown to be considered as the West Bromwich Albion boss conceded: 'I don't know how long we can carry on'.
English football has seen a surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, with a number of top flight matches postponed as a result of outbreaks at clubs including Manchester City and Fulham.
This week, the Premier League recorded 40 new Covid-19 cases in the latest round of testing, more than double the cases recorded the previous week and a record high in the league.
The latest test results come amid an alarming rise in coronavirus cases in the UK, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposing a new to keep the mutant Covid strain at bay, which is known to spread more easily.
The Premier League has now moved to testing players twice per week and introduced stricter protocols in a bid to prevent the risk of the deadly disease spreading further.
Allardyce, 66, has previously advocated for a two-week 'circuit breaker' to allow football to get on top of the virus, and on Saturday the Albion boss said a break may be the best solution.
'We're out to entertain and if we're to continue to do that then we're fearful of someone catching a virus they're not going to recover from?' he said.
'I don't know how long we can carry on. The big help is the vaccinations happening as quickly as possible but we may need a lockdown if cases outside of football continue to rise.
'There's talk about extra restrictions that we are going to come under in the next few weeks.
'We've got to do things at the training ground in smaller groups, we've got to spread ourselves out further and meetings have to be done in smaller groups. We cannot let players sit down.'
The Baggies are enduring a torrid return to the Premier League this season. The newly-promoted outfit sit in 19th position, six points adrift of safety.
Allardyce is winless in his first five games in charge, culminating in this weekend's embarrassing FA Cup exit to League One Blackpool.