Charlton boss Lee Bowyer: I can’t see football resuming for us to play Millwall derby on April 4

Charlton manager Lee Bowyer does not expect their season to resume on April 4 against Millwall.

The EFL have suspended all fixtures due to the spread of the coronavirus and the first fixture still locked into the diary for the Addicks is a South London derby at The Valley.

Charlton’s players were given five days break after the shutdown in matches while their Sparrows Lane training ground is deep cleaned.

“If you’re going to have three weeks without a game then it is for a good reason,” said Bowyer, below.

“The right thing to do is for everyone to step away and get the cleaning people in.

“We’ll come back in Thursday and we start going again. We’ll have just over two weeks to get ready for Millwall – which I don’t think will happen, if I’m honest.

“It is such a difficult situation. If we had an international break and had two weeks before our next game then you give the boys four days to go and recharge their batteries, they might fly to Spain. But we have got three weeks and no-one can go anywhere.

“The whole world is in trouble, not just our country.

“At the moment we prepare for Millwall but the way everyone is talking makes it sound like it is going to be worse by then. There is talk that in six weeks’ time it won’t be any better.

“I hope I’m wrong but I can’t see it getting any better before it gets a lots worse.”

Charlton had been set for a ding-dong of a survival scrap with Huddersfield on Saturday.

The build-up had been overshadowed by the boardroom dispute between majority shareholder Tahnoon Nimer and executive chairman Matt Southall.

Asked about the EFL’s decisions not to play last weekend’s matches, Bowyer replied: “I thought it was a bit rash. They could’ve gone on behind closed doors. I’d have rather the fans have been there, of course I would because it is what makes the game what it is. But you’ve seen abroad they have gone behind closed doors before they’ve stopped games.

“I understand it where you have got clubs where people have been diagnosed with it – but there was none of that in our division.

“It was gutting because we were ready. If there was a time to play a game for us – that was it. In the two years I’ve been here that was the most teed up I’ve seen us to go out and play a match.”