Town boss Paul Lambert says he and his staff are willing to defer their wages to assist the club while football is closed due to the coronavirus crisis.

Writing a column for the Daily Telegraph, Lambert said: “We are all experiencing an incredible situation across the world and a wage deferral is the least I can do as a football manager.

“I am desperate to help in any way I can, and myself and the coaching staff are all happy to assist the club in these difficult times.

"There are a lot of people who could lose jobs during this horrible period of uncertainty and nobody wants that to happen.

“We are all fortunate to work in a great sport but we're all equal — we all breathe the same and say the same things, and are no better than anyone else. Everybody in football has to stop and think about what is right.

“This is an unprecedented scenario for everyone and I'm speaking to the [general manager of football operations, Lee O'Neill] on Thursday night and I will certainly consider what is right for the club.”

Lambert adds that the job of a manager doesn’t stop even when there are no games with recruitment and plans for training among the tasks which remain ongoing.

The Blues boss also reiterates that the season should be completed whether starting again in “June or October or November”.

Currently, Town’s players are at home having been given training programmes, while off-field staff are working at home. Everyone is being paid in full with no suggestion of redundancies or any employees having been furloughed as things stand.

The Blues have eight games of their League One season left to play, five of those at Portman Road.

Town would face a significant loss in revenue if those matches were to be played behind closed doors, as has been mooted, with home fixtures bringing in broadly around £100,000 each in matchday tickets plus other on-the-day income such as programme and concourse refreshment sales, although they would save on some costs such as policing and stewarding.

Photo: TWTD

Nobbysnuts added 14:43 - Mar 28 Are deferring them for the whole season paul?
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blues1 added 20:42 - Mar 28 Itfcsince73. Ur right, this is a platform for people to put their opinions. But it's meant to be for ur comments on the particular story in hand. Not to use to put negative comments about the club in general. As for ur comment about oneill. U clearly have no idea about oneill qualifications for the position he has, or his past experience. If you did ud realise how right he is for the job.

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Marinersnose added 14:11 - Mar 29 I applaud PL leading from the front. He didn't have to do this but he's making a valuable point that Football comes second at times like this. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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ITFCsince73 added 18:20 - Mar 29 Chill out blues 1. The club isn't currently operating, he's no more experienced than me in that position currently.
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