THE ACID TEST
Ending season, quarantine and full training on agenda with clubs set to vote on what comes next
English Premier League faces a crucial test of Project Restart this week, with clubs set to vote on the next tentative stage of a return to full training and to debate what would happen if the league has to be curtailed.
But there is an ongoing discussion as to whether teams will have to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks before the Premier League starts — and it still looks as though June 26 is the likeliest date for a return.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal the key components of the next stages, which would involve a return to limited-contact training on Thursday, if the government allows it, with full contact to resume later next month.
Project Restart received a boost last night with the news that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has given La Liga the green light to resume from June 12.
With the Bundesliga successfully negotiating a second round of fixtures yesterday, the resumption of the Premier League looks ever more likely.
The Premier League will meet on Wednesday to discuss the next phase of training, ‘Phase Two’, which involves limited contact. At present, players train within small groups of four or five but have to stay two metres apart at all times, with limits on the total length of the session.
If the next stage is approved, it will allow:
Groups of up to 10 players and three staff;
No time limit to the total length of training session;
Groups can do some closecontact training but not full-contact and it this must be time limited.
For example, a player will be allowed to press their opponent but not tackle him in popular exercises such as the rondo, where players have to pass the ball amongst each other. Phase Two is not full-contact training with tackling and small-sided matches, which will have to wait at least another week.
Given that probably won’t resume until June 5 and most managers and physiologists are insisting that they need three or four weeks of full-contact training, then June 26 looks a more workable restart date.
Watford’s Tom Cleverley had said that most players have yet to be consulted on Phase Two but expected to hear more next week from club captain Troy Deeney and boss Nigel Pearson.
‘We’re doing Phase One and we have no information about Phase Two,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Troy and Nigel will be in meetings very soon but, for players, it’s a day-byday thing.’
Players and managers will be briefed on the
PhaseTwo protocols tomorrow and their feedback will be drafted into the protocols that the clubs discuss later in the week. Cleverley said that there will still be fears that the entire project could be derailed. ‘Phase Two, you could potentially be rubbing shoulders with 15, 20 guys on the same day, so if we get into Phase Two and there’s a spike in positive cases, I think that puts the whole thing in jeopardy,’ he said.
‘I think if Phase Two can be done safely, the logistics of a matchday are a bit more simple. Let’s wait for the information and the schedule on Phase Two and see if the players are happy with it.’ Coaches will ultimately have to risk assess all training-ground activity and score it from 1 to 10. Current running and shooting drills, which allow social distance, would be ranked 1-2. As contact grows, training exercises such as the rondo without tackling might be ranked 5 and a full five-aside would be ranked 7-8.
Coaches will be only be allowed a limited number of high-risk drills per day and only for a short period to minimise the risk of transmission.
The Premier League will also move step by step with the government’s guidance to elite sports on what is allowed, so will require them to move to phases two and three before they can proceed.
Thursday’s meeting of the Premier League shareholders threatens to be contentious, and Project Restart will be discussed in more general terms, including what to do if the season can’t finish.
The Premier League will need to agree on a plan of allocating league positions on points per game or some other weighted formula. It has been made clear that the FA would use their golden share in the Premier League to enforce relegation so there seems little prospect of the idea of voiding the drop gaining much traction.
Watford and Brighton, two clubs threatened with relegation, have indicated that they now want the season to resume, if the safety of players can be guaranteed.
Despite the fact that Watford have six members of staff absent from training at present, either because they are not yet comfortable to return or because they have to self-isolate, Cleverley says that Watford want to play the remaining nine Premier League games.
‘We have to back ourselves as a squad,’ said Cleverley. ‘The odds, from where I’m standing, are that the season is going to go ahead.
‘We are going to prepare for that. Even if it means playing without some of our best players, we have to back ourselves. We’ve got a great squad here and we are confident. We have no problems about continuing and proving that we do deserve to be in this league.’
TWO new cases of coronavirus, at two separate clubs, have been found after the latest round of Premier League tests. There were 996 players and club staff tested overall in a three-day period.