FIRST LEAGUE – While the authorities of the English first division are pushing for recovery and training has restarted with very specific protocols, many actors have given voice to admit their skepticism.
Training therefore resumed on Tuesday in several of the twenty Premier League clubs, including Liverpool and Tottenham. The others follow suit on Wednesday, after finally finding common ground after weeks of procrastination and bickering. Let us agree on what these “trainings” are: sessions in small groups of up to five players, none of these players being able to take part in them for a duration exceeding 75 minutes. No contact is obviously allowed, and the strictest health protocols surround all of the players’ activities, from their arrival at the center to their departure.
We are therefore still very far from collective training, the resumption of which would mark the start of the “pre-season” essential for the physical conditioning of footballers before resuming competition, as Raheem Sterling recalled. And if we were to take the German example as a reference, if everything went without a hitch – an “if” which is anything but a rhetorical precaution in the context of the health situation in England, much more problematic than in Germany – , we could therefore envisage a “real” resumption of the PL towards the end of June, that is to say two weeks later than the date originally envisaged by English football.
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The lower divisions and the women not affected by the recovery
When we say “English football”, we should point out right away that it is more than likely that only the Premier League is concerned, and not the seventy-two other clubs of the English Football League, which are heading straight for final stop of their seasons. A letter from Hull City FC to EFL President Rick Parry, asking him to simply cancel the current season, is another sign.
As for the women, well forgotten in the whole affair, they too are heading for a “stop” (and not yet), as suggested by the last communication dated FA from the subject. Scotland, it has decided. The SPL joined the championships of France, the Netherlands and Belgium and decreed that the 2019-20 season was no longer, with the key one more title for Celtic and a relegation which will make very, very bad for Heart of Midlothian.
But back to the Premier League, where everything is far from as simple as it seems. The fault is no longer – for now – of clubs thinking above all, if not only, of their own interests, but of the players in the game themselves, players and coaches, among whom the prospect of resuming the path of empty stadiums are not unanimous.
It is true that we have not asked them too much for their opinion up to this point, any more than we have done any consultation whatsoever with the supporters, although we have spoken a lot on their behalf, that the government of Boris Johnson, the Premier League and many commentators who favor a recovery as quickly as possible.
Lampard and Guardiola have reservations
It is not yet an organized rebellion, which should go through the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) or the League Managers Association, but statements made individually by “names” that count in English football. Frank Lampard, for example, expressed reservations which are shared by several of his colleagues, including Nigel Pearson and Pep Guardiola, who hates the idea of having to play behind closed doors, and whose mother died of Covid-19 at the beginning of April.
Pep Guardiola
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If Chelsea striker Willian could say that the “‘majority“players were”uncomfortable“Troy Deeney, the iconic captain of Watford, went further than anyone before being guaranteed replay before being guaranteed he could do it safely. Like his counterparts from Norwich Grant Hanley and West Ham Mark Noble, he had criticized the desire to resume at all costs, he has now refused to take part in the first “training” of his club.
Blacks, Asians and people from ethnic minorities are four times more likely to get the disease [que les autres], and twice as likely to be a lasting disease, he said. Have we planned additional screenings? Heart investigations to see if anyone has a problem? I can’t get my hair cut until mid-July, but can I end up in a penalty area with nineteen others and jump to make a head? I don’t know how it works. No one could answer my questions – not because they couldn’t, [mais] because they didn’t have the information.
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Deeney did not think only of the risks he faced personally, but above all, in fact, of the risks he would take to his last child, who is five months old and suffers from respiratory problems. And, judging by the first reactions in the world of football, he will not lack support. A little over a week ago, Manchester United manager Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer was able to say that none of his players would be forced to take against his will, and that if one of them wished not do so, he would not be held accountable.
So, yes, training has resumed in the Premier League, some form of training anyway. A first step was taken towards recovery, but with reluctance. Let the slightest obstacle appear, and this reluctance could turn into refusal, the reserves into rebellion. However, we learned last night that six of the 748 players and members of their coaching staff who had been tested as part of the PL recovery program had given positive results. Their identity is and will remain unknown; we just know that they are affiliated with three clubs and that they will have to remain in quarantine for a week, in accordance with the protocol of public health in Great Britain. The return journey will be long and arduous.
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“I don’t want to put my son in danger”: Deeney refuses to resume training
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