Tony Mowbray doesn’t believe behind closed doors fixtures are the answer to finishing the current football season.

Games have been postponed until at least April 3 due to the ongoing threat of Coronavirus, but that resumption date is now looking increasingly unlikely after the latest Government proposals for self-isolation were brought in this week.

There had been a consideration to playing games behind closed doors in order for the season to continue, as happened in the Champions League and Europa League matches last week.

But having watched those games on television, Mowbray says the lack of atmosphere with no fans being able to attend took away from the spectacle of the game as a whole.

The Championship has nine games left to go, and while Mowbray is in favour of the league reaching its conclusion should that be possible, he feels playing games without spectators wouldn’t be the right course of action.

Instead the Rovers boss would prefer to see the season come to a natural conclusion.

Despite the ongoing speculation about the next move, the EFL released a statement on Monday saying it wouldn’t be providing a running commentary of its plans.

They stated no decision had yet been taken and that is was a time for ‘cool heads rather than speculation’ ahead of its board meeting later this week.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and a number of Premier League players have so far contracted the virus, and while no Rovers player as yet has been confirmed as being in self-isolation, Mowbray felt the news of Arteta pushed football to postpone matches from last week.

He said: “I’m sure what’s happened in football is that a high-profile in the Premier League has coronavirus, and some players have coronavirus, and when is a team expected to play without its star players, its head coach, how many players have to be ill before you postpone a game? I don’t know the answer and that’s not my call.

“I think it’s a knock-on effect. If you have managers, players, self-isolating I think it’s important it’s telling the football world that people’s health is more important than a football match and while it’s frustrating, behind closed doors isn’t ideal, I watched games behind games doors and it’s really not a spectacle I liked to watch.

“That’s not ideal for the players and some fans won’t have missed a match for 20 years, let’s wait and see.

“It’s a really difficult one. The authorities are taking it day by day, they’re listening to the Government and the health authorities and they’re all playing it a day at a time which is what we’re trying to do.”

Games were called off on Friday morning, just over 24 hours before Rovers’ scheduled fixture with Bristol City, with matches having previously been given the go ahead on Thursday.

Mowbray says Rovers will take it day-by-day when it comes to planning ahead, but the April 3 resumption date is their focus for now.

And while no Rovers player is yet to test positive for coronavirus, the manager says that will be dealt with in the appropriate manner should the situation change.

The players are yet to return to training this week, with the senior training centre having undergone a specialist deep clean on Monday for when the players do go back in.

He added: “We’re planning for the next game being early April, the team have to continue to train. If anyone shows signs of illness then they will self-isolate, stay away from the building, but in that period they might have trained for two or three days with it so one player might become, two, three, four five players, and all of a sudden you’ve got a situation where you’re to be able to put a team out in early April.

“Let’s wait and see how it all goes. At this moment we’ll live day to day with the situation.”