Guthrie 'feels back to normal' after 'massively frustrating' spell out with COVID

Cobblers defender Jon Guthrie says he now feels 'back to normal' after his being 'massively frustrated' at having to miss a couple of matches due to testing positive for COVID.

The summer signing from Livingston had been an ever-present in the league up until the visit of Sutton United earlier this month when he was ruled out after returning a positive test.

Cobblers missed his presence at the back dearly, turning in their worst performance of the season in losing 2-0. Guthrie also sat out the EFL Trophy game with Walsall four days later.

"It was massively frustrating," admitted the 29-year-old. "As a footballer, you never want to miss any part of the season.

"I felt really frustrated when the test came back as positive but there's nothing you can do and fortunately I wasn't too bad symptom-wise, there was nothing major.

"Coming back, the first couple of training sessions were interesting. It took a few days for it to get out of my system and then I had one or two sessions before the Hartlepool game.

"For the first 10 minutes of that game, I thought 'I'll do well to get through this' but I managed to and since then I felt better and better and now I feel back to normal so it's all good."

Guthrie battled through the full 90 minutes at Hartlepool and then looked back to his best in the three following games as Cobblers kept three clean sheets.

"I was lucky to miss just the one league game but it can really affect teams," Guthrie added.

"It's something the management team spoke to us about at the start of the season in terms of trying to look after ourselves and not being in situations that we don't need to be in.

"But there's only so much you can do. I don't even know how I caught it but it's about trying to minimise the risks and limiting what you do and that will only benefit us in the long run.

"I think it will affect most clubs at some point in the season so if we can limit the amount of players who miss games, we'll give ourselves a better chance."