An international break with a heavy schedule in the middle of a pandemic has proved to be an awful idea, with a worrying amount of players testing positive for Covid-19 in the past few weeks.
That will have a knock-on effect as they spend time with teammates and employees at club level, while isolation rules mean that a lot of signings are still having to wait to join up with their new squad.
Andreas Pereira made a late loan move to Lazio from Man United in the window, and it sounds like he was supposed to be officially presented with some of the other signings this week.
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Football Italia have have just reported that those plans have been shelved after the Brazilian developed a fever, but they are still waiting on test results coming back to see how bad it is.
It does mean that he won’t be able to make his debut against Sampdoria this weekend, while it’s not actually clear when he can link up with the squad and start to train.
It’s awful timing for Pereira because he’s already at a disadvantage with a new club after missing the early games and he had his pre-season somewhere else, so it could take him a bit of time to settle in.