Dean Smith insists Norwich City's players and staff must do everything they can to ensure there is no large scale Covid outbreak at the club, after Saturday's Premier League trip to West Ham was postponed.

Premier League bosses granted City's call off request, following a growing injury list compounded by a number of positive cases, and others displaying symptoms related to the virus such as a high temperature.

First teamers Adam Idah, Kieran Dowell and Sam Byram were among those who visited the Norwich Community hospital on Friday to get a Pfizer booster jab.

Smith revealed prior to the midweek defeat to his old club Aston Villa he had got his booster, but the City head coach had only nine senior players available to train in the past couple of days at Colney.

A total of five Premier League games have been postponed this weekend, with large Covid outbreaks at Tottenham and Manchester United recently leading to the closure of training grounds.

City have no plans to follow suit, with Smith, his assistant Craig Shakespeare and sporting director Stuart Webber all in attendance at Colney on Friday night to watch the Under-23s' 4-3 Premier League Two, Division Two win over Southampton's u23s.

Norwich's top brass hope their injury and illness issues will now ease ahead of Arsenal's Boxing Day visit to Carrow Road, after a difficult week.

“I like to stick to just football because that's my knowledge. There's far cleverer people in terms of knowing the ins and outs of this latest health situation, and the view of the government rather than me,” said Smith. “The whole country at the moment is holding its breath. We've now been told there's a wave on its way.

“It’s always worrying when you get the government or the Prime Minister making announcements. For the last two years, we've had that, and we got through the first period by playing a lot of games in a short amount of time with no supporters, and almost a full season last year without supporters. We've managed to get them back into grounds.

“They're running a booster programme now that will hopefully be taken up by the majority of the population and we can still go on and enjoy the entertainment that's out there.

"It's an outdoor event, which is good, but we need to make sure people get their vaccinations and their boosters as quickly as possible.”

Smith is no stranger to dealing with the footballing impact of the pandemic, with the Premier League instructing clubs to return to daily testing and a minimum of twice-weekly PCR rounds.

“I've been through it before. When I was with Aston Villa we had to play a youth team in the FA Cup game (against Liverpool in January 2021). That was one of the first ones that was called off,” he said. “It's been going on for so long, we know what the criteria is.

“I think most football clubs got used to the protocols that were previously set by the Premier League, and actually continued to do that. I feel that the majority of football clubs at the moment are trying to do what they can to deter the Covid virus, as you much as you can.

"But the Omicron variant is very worrying for everyone.”