Dean Smith has to weigh up whether Tim Krul needs an FA Cup hit against Charlton after his latest spell out with Covid.

Krul missed the festive defeats to Arsenal and Crystal Palace to self isolate, but is now available ahead of Sunday’s FA Cup tie at Charlton and the re-arranged upcoming Premier League midweek trip to West Ham.

That is one of two league games City did manage to get postponed, due to what Smith felt was an impossible situation regarding the impact of illness and injury on his squad.

“Tim hasn't played obviously for a couple of weeks due to Covid. Angus came in during that period and we also have Micky McGovern so there are a number of options for who is in goal,” said the City boss.

“We'll do what we feel is right. Obviously, we've got West Ham on Wednesday and then Everton on the Saturday as well. So we'll do what's right for the club.

“I've been frustrated because I think we played games when we shouldn't have, we shouldn't have been asked to play games when we had 10 players unavailable, eight of them possible starters. It makes it an unfair competition in my eyes.

“What's worrying is we had a Premier League managers’ meeting a few weeks ago, and we were told that the north of England was probably 10 to 12 days behind the outbreak in the London area.

"Now we have seen Sean Dyche, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp all missing games due to Covid, plus a lot of players, so that brings home to me it is still amongst us and it is still around.

"Hopefully in our area we are through this latest spike and we can move forward.”