Liverpool players enjoying indoor training sessions
london — The Premier League has been suspended indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic with the UK on lockdown to curb the spread of the virus. Liverpool held a 25-point lead at the top of the table when the season was halted.
And manager Juergen Klopp has been putting his players through their paces in online training sessions and said the social aspect of the link-up, including birthday singalongs, was helping the squad deal with being stuck in isolation.
“When we have these training sessions, I could have never imagined I would enjoy it that much,” he said. “The boys are all in good spirits. When we start at 10, the chat is open from 9.30 on and pretty much everybody is already in ... That’s the best thing of having this situation in 2020 - we have this technical opportunity.
“Imagine if we would have had it in the ‘80s or something like that, it would have been really crazy. Not because of football, because of all the social contact and interaction we can have and use in the moment. That makes a big difference.”
Meanwhile, The English Football League (EFL) has agreed a “compromise proposal” with the body representing the country’s professional players, allowing clubs to defer 25% of their wages for April amid the new coronavirus outbreak, it said on Tuesday.
Professional soccer in England has been suspended since March 13 due to the pandemic with several clubs putting non-playing staff on leave. The Professional Footballers’ Association previously accepted that players would have to share the financial burden of the impact of the virus.