Leeds United, like all other Sky Bet Championship sides, returned to training on Monday. It was a return that saw players together for the first time in two months, two months where they’d been following individual routines. Whites captain, Liam Cooper, said that he was amazed at the condition they returned in. Former Whites striker, Noel Whelan. told Football Insider that aspects of future training will be massive for the club.
As it is now, players are restricted to just small-group exercises that must not include physical contact between the players. For example, the group that Cooper trained with was the Leeds United backline plus a midfielder. This is done to help combat any cross-infection between the players.
Obviously, ahead of a full return to football, this training regime will have to be stepped up further. this will be done in incremental stages and done following the strict guidelines laid down by the Government. On Monday of this week, the Government released their ‘Elite sport return to training guidance: Stage Two’ guidance for elite athletes.
The main point that will be of interest to football clubs such as Leeds United is the following:
“Stage Two training can be described as the resumption of close contact (interaction within the two-metre social distancing boundary) training where pairs, small groups and/or teams will be able to interact in much closer contact (e.g. close quarters coaching, combat sports sparring, teams sports tackling, technical equipment sharing, etc).”
This allowance means that Marcelo Bielsa now has to go-ahead to integrate players more in training. Obviously guidelines must be adhered to and Leeds United have bought their own clinical testing machine to allow them to be further certain of player safety.
Commenting on this, former White Whelan says: It is huge.” He then continues by adding: “It shows that the testing has been good and the majority of the players have looked after themselves. That is shown by the test results and how many have come out negative.”
One of the more positive things about this, says Whelan in conversation with Football Insider, is that things are slowly getting back to where they were. He said of this: “I think now a little bit of normality within training is a very exciting prospect. Players can get together and get the training done at close contact which is needed if we want to resume matches in June.”
Mid to late-June has been pencilled in by the EFL as the date they’d like to get their seasons from suspended to underway. Training is a vital part of that and it looks like it is going in the right direction.
