All my family are locked down in Spain. I'm so very far away and so worried. But we are all still alive

BIRMINGHAM BOSS PEP CLOTET ON THE ANXIETY OF BEING SEPARATED FROM LOVED ONES IN THE CRISIS

- TONY BANKS

But imagine having your loved ones, your wife and children, and your parents, 800 miles away and not being able to do a thing to help them.

English football is packed full of foreign managers, coaches, players and other staff. Some have their close families with them, many do not. But all will have family members in their home countries, some of them countries where the coronavirus has struck hard, some in lockdown.

Birmingham manager Pep Clotet is one of those.

Last Wednesday he packed wife Vanessa, three-year-old son Max and one-year-old daughter Helena back off to his native Spain, as they felt that was the safer place to be. Within a day of their arrival, their home town of Igualada, near Barcelona, suddenly hard hit by the virus, was in lockdown. There also are his parents, father Ramon, 71, and mother Maria, 68 – who has health problems.

And all the way back in Birmingham, training his team as they wait for the re-start of a season that may never actually start again, is Pep, 42.

If it was not for the internet, he would have no chance of seeing his wife and children – and the anxiety is crippling.