Sheffield Wednesday boss Garry Monk has claimed that the Championship restarting on June 20 is ‘too early’ in an interview with Sheffield Star.
Monk believes that the players will not be ready or fully fit once the season resumes due to a lack of time involved in contact training.
The EFL announced that contact training would begin earlier this week but the Wednesday boss has revealed that it was discussed in a meeting that Championship clubs would have a minimum of three weeks contact training before a resumption.
Monk’s side are eight points outside the play-off places with nine games remaining and has issued his concerns over a restart on June 20. “I think we all understand how difficult it is for the EFL to put this together, send it out to the clubs and give those guidelines. It’s an extremely difficult situation for them.”
“In terms of the return date, I think if we are honest, we were all taken aback by that. The fact was that there was no prior correspondence or consultation to that return date, which was surprising for us.”
“It’s well known that we’ve been working minimum of a week behind the Premier League. We had a managers’ meeting a few weeks ago with the EFL, and one thing we all asked for – and we thought had been agreed – was that we would have a minimum of three weeks contact training.”
HUGE RISK
“Contact training has only just been signed off yesterday, so for ourselves, our first contact will be on Thursday. So to have the players ready in two and a half weeks when you’ve only just started contact training is a huge risk in terms of injuries and preparation if we’re honest,” the Sheffield Wednesday manager continued.
“If everyone has adhered to the guidelines and returned on the 25th, then I don’t think there’s any manager who could sit here honestly and say that two and a half weeks of contract training is good enough preparation for the players to go and then play an intense batch of games. We have to deal with it all though, and I’m just trying to focus on what we can do.”
To some clubs it did come as surprise to hear of the date in which the season is looking to be resumed considering the Premier League began their contact training earlier than the Championship.
But in these uncertain times there were always going to be some clubs who were left unhappy or concerned over aspects of a return to football.
