Lampard – safety must be paramount during pandemic

Chelsea boss Frank Lampard insists safety must take priority after his former England teammate Steven Gerrard highlighted the role of football in providing people with a distraction during the coronavirus crisis.

Rangers manager Gerrard said he was not aware of “evidence or data to suggest there is a guarantee of improvement” if a “circuit-breaker” was used to help combat the escalation in Covid-19 cases, adding that the sport gives people “a release” and “something to watch”.

Two members of Chelsea’s non- playing staff have returned positive results from the latest round of testing and when asked about Gerrard’s view, Lampard stressed the importance of protecting people from harm.

“I’m not sure on that one,” Lampard said.

“I understand it. If you do love football you love watching the amount of games you get to watch at home. But safety has to be paramount.

“There are lots of people working at Chelsea within our bubble who have babies, parents, friends, sisters, brothers, grandparents... they come here and go to work.

“Then they go home and are in the environment where there’s another surge of the virus, which seems to be more contagious, so safety and security are paramount rather than trying to keep the nation’s spirits up.

“I know that might not be a nice thing to say, but these are tough times for everybody. We enjoy watching our football but safety and health have to come first.”

Lampard is open to the idea of a “circuit-breaker” if it is deemed necessary.

He added: “We had that before in March. I have to say the Premier League and clubs themselves have done everything they can to make the environment as safe as possible.

“But we’ re finding that’s not always easy to do when people go home and leave the building and the numbers are going up, particularly in London where we are.

“That would have to be for the authorities, government, Premier League ... everybody would need to be clear that it would be beneficial to stop for a circuitbreaker. If you’re told to stop, you stop.”

Lampard is expecting tomorrow’ s Premier League clash with Manchester City to go ahead despite the recent outbreak of coronavirus at City which forced the postponement of Monday’s game against Everton.

City boss Pep Guardiola has revealed that the club have five first-team players unavailable for the trip to Stamford Bridge due to positive tests, with two members of staff also forced to isolate.

“I haven’ t been given the chances of the game being postponed this weekend, I’m just aware of the situation,” said Lampard.

“At the moment the game is on.”

●Today’ s Sky Bet Championship fixtures between Brentford and Bristol City and Luton and QPR have both been postponed due to coronavirus.

Frank Lampard – “tough times for everybody”.