George Johnston has spoken on the recent Covid-19 outbreak at Bolton Wanderers which forced the postponement of the club's last three games as he labelled the current situation with coronavirus the worst he has experienced in football since the start of the pandemic.
Wanderers have not been in action since December 11 in League One when they suffered a 1-0 loss on the road to Accrington Stanley.
Since then, matches against Wycombe Wanderers, Morecambe and Burton Albion have all been called off following a Covid-19 outbreak at the Whites.
It affected a total of 18 people, with 14 players and four football staff members including manager Ian Evatt returning positive tests.
Wanderers are poised to next be in action on New Year's Day away to Rotherham United, a match which is on as things stand.
Johnston has spoken on the events of the last few weeks and the lead-up to the Wycombe game being called off, as he branded the current situation with Covid in football the worst he has seen.
He said: “I feel like we’re coming into training and preparing for a game and then the next day, we find out that all the plans go out of the window because the game is off, so it has been quite uncertain.
"It's not as stressful because we just keep ourselves composed and relaxed and take each day as it comes, but it has been quite uncertain.
“Since the start of it and everything got completely shut down, this is the worst it’s been. We went back behind closed doors and pretty much every game was on, you might have one or two positive cases, but not 75% of the whole squad, so it has been the worst since the start of the pandemic.
“I remember coming in and I think we had a few positive cases but then it was just training as normal, prepare for Wycombe, so we started to prepare for it and then obviously the new EFL guidelines with testing every day and we just had more each day, so it came to a point where we had to shut the whole facility.
“For players I think it’s no different as usual in terms of off the pitch. We know the pandemic’s going on so when we’re at home or going out, we try and keep ourselves safe.
“In terms of training obviously it’s been a lot different the last couple of weeks. Last week we were completely off and shut down so I think we just cleared our heads at home, spent time with families, but now we’ve been back on the pitch the past week, it’s back to business as usual.
“It’s been very difficult, even before the Covid cases, we had a lot of injuries and we had to deal with stuff on and off the pitch, so it’s been quite a difficult and turbulent time but I think we’re coming through to the back end of it now.
"Last week with Covid, no-one trained so everyone got a break to recover, so we’re coming to the back end of it now and hopefully we progress from here.”
Johnston admits there is a slight degree of anxiety in the Wanderers camp from those who have not tested positive for the illness, but believes this has decreased among those who have now recovered from it.
Bolton's next opponents come in the form of League One leaders Rotherham United, whose game last night versus Lincoln City was called off following positive Covid tests in the Imps camp.
That has been the only Millers game of late to be postponed and Paul Warne's side have otherwise had a full fixture list recently.
Johnston is looking forward to the encounter at the New York Stadium and does not want to use the contrasting recent fortunes from a Covid perspective as an excuse in the build-up to the encounter.
Wanderers lost the reverse fixture at the University of Bolton Stadium earlier this season, and Johnston is hoping Bolton can get three points against a side sitting top of the third tier of English football.
He said: “I don’t want to make excuses but I’d prefer to be playing every week and training than having a week off to recover. People think we’re going to come back fresh, but that’s not always the case as footballers.
"You want to keep yourself ticking along, I know the lads here are good professionals off the pitch when we were at home last week, we were going on runs, but it’s not the same as playing football every day so immediately they’ve got one up on us but we’re not going to use that as an excuse.
“It’ll be a difficult game. They’re obviously top of the league. I remember the game earlier on in the season, it was a fast game, quite competitive.
"The only difference in it is they scored from two set pieces, other than that, I think we dominated the game and should have got something out of it, especially in the second half, but they’re top of the league so they’ve got all the confidence and we’re on the back end of a few rough results. But we’re going there trying to get the win and turn things around.
“Everyone’s dying to get back playing again now. I think you can train as much as you can but there comes a point where you do actually want to play a game of football and it’s been a tough few weeks. We’ve trained and we’ve had the stoppage in training and then back training again, but everyone is just full focus on Saturday now and raring to go.
"I think it’s coming to that point in the season now where teams that you’ve played against have not got the right result against you, you kind of owe them one and Rotherham being top of the league, it would just be massive to go there and get three points.”
“I think anything can happen in this league. Obviously for them they’ll be looking to get back to winning ways but so are we, so we’re going into it both with the same mentality that we need to win the game, so it’ll be a good competitive fast game I feel.”
