Watford are awaiting test results on one player as they wait to hear whether tomorrow’s game with Leicester City still goes ahead as the coronavirus outbreak continues to mount.

The Premier League have called an emergency meeting of clubs this morning where it is expected at least all of this week’s fixtures will be postponed after Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and Chelsea winger Callum Hudson-Odoi tested positive for Covid-19.

Hornets head coach Nigel Pearson went ahead with his pre-match press conference as normal this morning where he explained that all players and training ground staff had been instructed to stay at home yesterday.

He said: “We are still preparing for the game which is difficult bearing in mind a week which has been disrupted. We’ve had players who have had symptoms of not being well, that’s not to the say they’re all the same. We’ve had players who have experienced illness this week, who have stayed at home.

“We were due to have a day yesterday off site to do something different but decided against that because of the growing concerns around coronavirus, so in the end we told all the players to stay at home, indeed all the technical staff, all the training ground staff.

“We’ve done that as a precautionary measure because we’ve currently got one player who we’re awaiting test results on his symptoms and then we’ll look at how we take it further.

“Yesterday morning myself, Gino (Pozzo), Filippo (Giraldi) our technical director and Scott Duxbury, we sat and discussed how we continue to deal with the situation here. We’ve tried to be as proactive as possible to look after the interests of our players and their families and all the staff here. It’s not an easy situation to be involved in.

"We currently don’t have a return of a positive result but in the current climate it’s pretty inevitable that we’ve all, or we all will have contact with somebody who either has the virus or has possibly even recovered from it. We don’t know. I think in the meantime we continue to be vigilant and do what is right for the wellbeing of all the staff who work at this football club.

“And of course we have a greater responsibility as well and that is the country, as indeed the world is, is in a state of anticipation what it means to them. We’re no different and we’re trying to look after the interests of the people who work here and their wider families."

Asked further about the types of symptoms players and staff had been experiencing, Pearson added: “We’ve had somebody with a chest infection, somebody with an upset stomach, players who have shown flu-like symptoms. Not eveybody’s the same and we have many people who feel okay.

"We’ve tried to introduce measures at the training ground over the last two, three weeks, like everybody I presume would have done with hand washing etc. We do what we can but it’s a contact sport."