West Ham to retest players and staff after trio test positive for coronavirus

West Ham’s players and staff will be retested for coronavirus following Tuesday night’s positive results for boss David Moyes, Issa Diop and Josh Cullen.

Premier League squads are only tested once a week this season but West Ham have lined up extra tests, including for Moyes, Diop and Cullen.

However, manager Moyes and the two players are still likely to have to self-isolate for 10 days as they have sore throats.

The Hammers, who host Wolves in the Premier League on Sunday evening, will also deep clean the London Stadium and their Rush Green training ground.

Moyes, Diop and Cullen only found out about the positive results around an hour before their Carabao Cup match with Hull was due to kick off.

Defender Diop and midfielder Cullen had been initially named in the starting line-up.

The three men were immediately placed in isolation, before swiftly leaving the stadium and travelling home.

Moyes’ assistant Alan Irvine took charge of the third-round match, which West Ham won 5-1.

Irvine spoke afterwards about the club’s “shock” at receiving the news, given they had received no positive tests previously.

The Scot said: “We do know that the tests are not completely accurate so we will wait and see what happens.”

However, Hammers co-owner David Sullivan revealed all three have complained of sore throats.

“We are now tested once a week, we were tested on Monday and the results came through literally at 6.30. Unfortunately, the manager and two of the players tested positive,” Sullivan told talkSPORT.

“The whole team will be retested today to see if we’ve got any more casualties.

“The players are fine. The manager is in fine form this morning. He had a sore throat for a couple of days but he put it down to shouting a lot.

“They were retested last night in the hope of it being a ‘false positive’ but since they all have slight sore throats, there is every possibility they have got the virus.”

Eyebrows were raised that the match was even allowed to go ahead, especially with nearby Leyton Orient’s tie against Tottenham called off due to positive tests at the League Two club.

EFL clubs no longer have to conduct regular mandatory tests on their players, and League One Hull also turned down an offer to be tested from West Ham.

However, PA understands the EFL is reviewing that stance.

Sullivan added: “The EFL are not testing their players for financial reasons. We actually said ‘medically why are we in a competition against teams who have not been checked’?

“We and a few other Premier League clubs made the offer to give these teams a test at our expense so we weren’t exposing our players to untested players.

“Unfortunately, Hull didn’t want to have it. Charlton the previous week did, for example.”

Sunday’s Premier League match is still expected to go ahead with Irvine in interim charge of West Ham again.