Burnley trained with 10 senior players ahead of application to postpone Watford clash

The league are meeting to review the application, which, if accepted,will mean the Clarets have five games to reschedule.

Dyche, himself only just back in at work after testing positive for Covid 13 days ago, explained the scenario, having had to call off Saturday's home game with Leicester City the day before.

Chris Wood joined Newcastle United for £25m last Thursday, after the Magpies met a transfer clause, reducing Dyche's options further, while he has injuries to Johann Brg Gudmundsson (slight calf) and Charlie Taylor, who is having a scan on a knock, while Ashley Barnes and Connor Roberts are closing in on a return to fitness, but not there yet.

Throw in Maxwel Cornet away at the Africa Cup of Nations, and Dyche said: “We’re at such a stretched moment in time that it’s very difficult all round.

“So far at training today, there were 10 recognised first team players. That’s where we’re at today.

“We put the application in in good faith. It’s only three days of course since the game that was called off.

“We’ll see what comes of that. We’ve worked really hard to get games on when we’ve been stretched, but we’ve just gone too far below the threshold. It’s just an improbable situation.

“If there was a reason why they said we had to carry on with this game, then we would prepare properly and carry on the challenge as we always do.”

On the injuries, Dyche revealed: "Johann has a slight calf injury and has Covid. Some haven’t had any training. Charlie has taken a knock and is having that scanned having been back (from Covid) on Saturday and trying to get fit.

"There are so many different situations that we are monitoring at the moment, later in the week I would hope to have a better view regardless of a game or no game.

"We have some players coming back from injury and some players coming back from Covid and hopefully that clears the situation in our favour."