Slaven Bilic assesses bigger picture with promotion drives for West Brom and Leeds United on hold

Bilic's Baggies and Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds United hold a commanding advantage in the Championship's automatic promotion spots but now face uncertainty over how the current campaign will be concluded.

Social distancing measures to combat the pandemic of COVID-19 have led to both the Premier League and EFL seasons being extended indefinitely with all football suspended until at least April 30.

Officials have already accepted that resuming action at the end of the month is not a realistic prospect and there have been calls in some quarters for the Premier League and EFL seasons to be declared null and void - as has been the case in non-league competitions below the National League.

Other suggestions including finishing the seasons with standings as they are or simply waiting until the country has turned the tide with coronavirus and finishing the remaining games in the summer or even autumn or winter.

Bilic, though, whilst hoping that the remaining fixtures can be concluded, says his primary thoughts are currently on the bigger picture of public health in general.

Speaking to Turkish newspaper, Fanatik, via Sport Witness, Bilic said: "I don’t know when football will restart.

"The professionals will decide that, but the important thing is the safety of the people.

"Actually, I don’t think about football at the moment. I hope football will resume soon both in England and Turkey. Because I think this season needs to be completed on the pitch.

“I’m with my family in Birmingham. We are trying to comply with the rules. I’m only leaving the house for 15 minutes to get some food. We gave our players some training regime to follow during this situation.

“We are following their progress on the internet. But it’s not a hard training programme. I think we will have a lot of time in training once this is over."

Turning his attention back to what matters most, Bilic added: "We are lucky. There are people in the world that don’t have enough money and are currently in a bad situation. A lot of people facing danger to lose their jobs. If I complain at the moment, that’d be crazy.

“There are people working in the hospitals and they are risking their life for us. Some people need to stay alive in very small flats. So, comparing to them, my situation means absolutely nothing.

"We should think about how we can help those people and we need lots of things to help them both financially and morally.”

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