SOUTHEND United have shut their academy for the rest of the month due to the coronavirus epidemic.

All of Blues’ youngsters, including the youth team and under-23s, will train alone for the next fortnight.

And the Shrimpers’ academy manager Ricky Duncan feels it is the right way to deal with an unprecedented situation.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this before but we have to handle it in the right way and I think we are,” said Duncan.

“We’ve sent all the boys home and we’ve shut the academy.

“We’ve sent the youth team and the 23s home as well to keep them away from each other but they have their own training programmes.

“We’ll come back at the end of the month and hopefully be able to get back to some kind of normality but I think that’s going to take a bit of time.”