It would now appear that the English government, along with Germany, Italy and Spain, are planning to ease the lockdown restrictions now that the coronavirus is slowly coming under some sort of control. Obviously everyone still has to follow the strict social distancing guidelines, but Arsenal are happy they can now organize training on an individual basis, with minimal contact with others.
“Players will be permitted access to our London Colney training grounds,” a club spokesperson told the BBC. “Access will be limited, carefully managed and social distancing will be maintained.
“All Colney buildings remain closed. Players will travel alone, do their individual workout and return home.”
With reports that the Premier League are in talks with the government about restarting the League behind closed doors, then it makes sense for clubs to start assessing their players fitness before games can resume, but it would appear that not all managers are sure they can train and play safely in the near future.
The Brighton manager Graham Potter told the Daily Mail: ‘No player has spoken to me directly about this but there is a concern generally that, if social distance rules are there, they are there for a reason. Therefore, it is hard for us to be outside of that situation on a football pitch.
‘It seems to me that everyone is talking about social distancing and saying that means the crowd cannot be there, but no one is talking about footballers on the pitch.
‘If there is a corner and 20 players are in the penalty box in a small and confined area, that’s not social distancing. We are guided by the authorities, we see the big picture and we want to do the right thing for the health of the nation. It’s something we need to discuss.
‘Those rules are there not because anyone wants to stop us playing football. They are there for a reason, which is to protect people from dying. So we have to be very, very serious about those measures.’
I think that games would only be feasible once we have highly accurate and easily available testing kits, so that every participant is screened every time they enter the ground then they can be fairly safe that games can go ahead. These may be available soon, so maybe, just maybe, football may be coming back soon!