Dan Ashworth has revealed Albion are working towards playing in early June – for now.

But the club’s technical director is well aware that could change.

Players are off until May 1 as things stand with next month earmarked for a sort of pre-season.

But no one can predict when the coronavirus crisis will ease sufficiently to allow football to return.

Ashworth said: “We feel that as early as the beginning of June it might happen, therefore we need to have the players back in training for at least four weeks, four and a bit weeks.

“They have some programmes they’re doing at the moment remotely.

“If that changes, then obviously we’ll change that situation.

“We needed to have some sort of date to work to.

“But in all likelihood that might well change.”

Doubt over what the coming months holds means the club now need a Plan C when it comes to player recruitment.

Ashworth said: “The nature of the situation that a club like Brighton is in, pretty much the bottom half of the Premier League, you’re never 100% sure which league you’re going to be in anyway with nine games to go.

“We always run two sort of strategies – one if we were in the Premier League, one if we were in the Championship.

“We now have a third strategy, which is if there are huge financial implications which could run into tens of millions of pounds, it could well affect what we need to do in the summer.

“It has probably added another layer of us being flexible, work to three scenarios rather than two.”