United's fixtures against Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City had been slated to take place at AAMI Park on July 16 and 20, with the venue for those games now officially TBC on the official A-League schedule, before the expansion-side headed to New South Wales for games against Sydney FC and Newcastle Jets.

A game against Western Sydney Wanderers at a venue TBC will follow, before a return to NSW to take on Perth Glory.

But much like Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City's staff and players, those in Tarneit remain in the dark about where their TBC games will be staged when the A-League resumes after Melbourne's latest COVID-19 crisis. 

This confusion has been compounded by the re-imposition of stage-three restrictions in a number of Melbourne postcodes, forcing the relocation of a number of players.

“We’ve probably been affected quite a bit,” Rudan said on Friday.

“We’ve got quite a few players that had to move into a hotel on Wednesday night, they’ve been there since. The number is around six or seven.

“We’ve had a good chat to them, the club's looked after them. They’re allowed to come to work, which is great.

“[The situation] is not ideal for us, because we do want to stay in Melbourne with City and Victory and play he first two games here and then travel.

“We’ve been briefed on the possibility of us moving to NSW to play those game.

"However, we feel quite confident that we’re all doing the right thing and the three Melbourne clubs are working hard to do the right thing as well. If we can look after one another and play in a safe environment we’d prefer to play here in Melbourne.”

The jam-packed nature of United’s upcoming fixture, the six games remaining on their slate standing alongside Sydney FC, Wellington Phoenix and Perth Glory as equal most in the league, presents a unique preparatory conundrum to Rudan even without a hub scenario coming into play. 

In addition, the decision by the FFA to adopt a FIFA edict allowing for five substitutes instead of three to counteract some of the wear and tear that could potentially arise in the face of such a crunch presents another new challenge. 

PLUS...

Pic special: Melbourne in action

All three Melbourne A-League clubs hit the training paddock ahead of this month's restart– and we've to the pictures to prove it. Check out the action now.

“Coaching is coaching, I think you always have to plan for any given game,” Rudan said.

“But one big difference is how do you utilise the change of rules that FIFA introduced? For me, the biggest one is the five-substitution rule. We’ve made it very clear to the players that there will be decisions made based on strategy and planning.