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The Premier League will try to show that players will be safer on the club’s training grounds than they would be at home when they receive a crucial conference call on Wednesday afternoon.
The league has sent its protocols for a return to training through the Professional Soccer Association to each club captain or PFA representative, allowing them to be digested and discussed among the teams. Now the league will invite captains or reps to voice their concerns at a meeting deemed crucial to the goal of restarting the season in mid-June.
In a separate meeting on Wednesday morning, the league will speak to the manager of each club, with the executive director of the Association of League Managers, Richard Bevan, also present. Medical experts will be on every call.
Players clearly must be on board with the reboot and it is accepted that a proportion of them are afraid of putting themselves and their families in danger. Others just want to play and play crack. It has been almost impossible to discern the percentage of divisions, although the group of high-profile players who have spoken out against the restart has attracted a lot of attention. They include Danny Rose of Newcastle and Sergio Agüero of Manchester City.
In a club, it is understood that there is work to be done to make the players feel comfortable, with the opinions expressed by Rose and Agüero in line with those of the majority of the team. There is a certain degree of nervousness, to put it mildly. On the other hand, another club made a call with their manager and players last week and no one spoke against the restart.
The league is confident that its plans to create a securely sealed bubble on training grounds will allay the players’ concerns; They will realize that they are more likely to get coronavirus from, for example, a family member who has returned from the supermarket than from anyone in their work environment.
At the same time, the league wants to emphasize that players also have a responsibility to complete the season. In short, they shouldn’t violate government guidelines the way Wolves midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White did last week when he attended a party in London. He faces disciplinary action.
What the league wants is to establish better lines of communication than those seen during the salary deferral arguments, which led to a mindset of us and them among the players. However, some players resent that it took so long to receive the protocol information; for some the delay has increased doubts.
Players will be evaluated twice a week and phase one of the return from training will feature physical distance measurements in line with what a member of the public could do in a park. The difference is that a member of the public can only meet with one person outside their home.
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Players will drive to train in their kit, park in three separate spaces, do their jobs, and then go home without showering. They will be encouraged to wear a hairnet or face mask at all times, despite criticism of the practicality of this. Some players have already returned for staggered solo training. The hope is that small group work can begin next Monday.
The wolves, whose players returned to their training camp at Compton Park on Monday, began their testing procedures the same day, with more than 10 staff in the back room that Premier League-appointed doctors took the virus.
The PFA will support any player who does not want to play. Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Chris Wilder, the managers of Manchester United and Sheffield United respectively, have said they would not force anyone back into action.
