Norwich City sporting director Stuart Webber has revealed the unidentified player who tested positive for coronavirus has now returned a negative test in a further check with the club’s own doctor.

The player is still out of consideration for this Friday’s return to action behind closed doors against Southampton as he had to self-isolate for a period of seven days, following the previous round of testing conducted by the Premier League last week.

However Webber provided the latest update speaking on the Beautiful Game podcast.

“Lucky the player in question is completely fine,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with him. He has actually done an independent test with our club doctor which has come back negative. Which is confusing. So now he has to have a third test to see if that comes back negative and to check if he has any antibodies, which could perhaps prove he had it in the past but doesn’t have it right now.

“It is all very scientific. But the main thing is he is healthy and so is the rest of the group. But it is a good wake up call that even with all these measures in place one of us can still get it. That is quite scary.”

All Premier League squads and coaching staff are being tested twice a week in the lead up to football’s return.

The City player was one of two positive tests announced over last weekend.

But as part of protocols approved by Premier League shareholders for the re-started season, players will not need to self-isolate if someone from their team or an opposition player they have come into contact with tests positive for coronavirus.

The Norwich player in question featured in Friday’s behind closed doors friendly against Tottenham at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

The league believes its testing programme, along with temperature checks and health questionnaires, allows them to mitigate the risks of the virus spreading between players during a match.

A clinical passport, proving that individual has tested negative for coronavirus within the last five days, must be presented to enter the ‘red zone’ of a stadium - which spans the pitch and the area immediately around it.

Research on 288 Premier League matches this season, conducted by league officials, found that 98 per cent of the time on-pitch interactions between players lasted less than five minutes in total.

That is below the 15 minutes of close contact the government and Publi Health England sets as the threshold for someone to be traced when an individual tests positive.