WHAT seemed like an unlikely pipe dream to many, is now beginning to feel real.
And as players returned to training yesterday this has certainly been a good news week for the Premier League’s Project Restart.
Frank Lampard took charge of a Chelsea training session on TuesdayCredit: Getty Images – Getty
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Results showing that just SIX of 748 players and staff tested at 19 top-flight clubs proved positive for coronavirus — on the back of a successful reboot of the German Bundesliga season — will make many in the game believe that a June resumption is now probable.
Chelsea players began training in small groups at their Cobham base yesterday, exchanging elbow-bump greetings and clearly in the zone for a return to action next month.
Tottenham’s Son Heung-min — back from national military service in South Korea — was flashing his trademark grin, with his club due to start group sessions today.
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp — understandably more desperate than most to get the season back on with the title tantalisingly close — is ‘over the moon’ that his champions-elect will return to their Melwood HQ today.
And there has been a clear mood swing across football during the past couple of days that a June restart is increasingly likely.
There remains a lot of understandable fear among players. And for those at the three clubs where colleagues have tested positive, concerns might even have been heightened.
Newcastle’s on-loan left-back Danny Rose says players feel like ‘lab rats’ — although the outspoken England man softened his stance on returning since last week, when he referred to Project Restart as ‘b*****ks’.
And Watford skipper Troy Deeney, who has an infant son with breathing difficulties, is refusing to return to training with the full support of his club.
But a ring around top-flight sources a fortnight ago suggested that, while most owners and directors have been desperate to get football back on behind closed doors, many players and staff were not just fearful of a restart but didn’t believe it was realistic.
Watching the Bundesliga complete a full round of fixtures at the weekend is said to have given ‘confidence’ to many Premier League players.
What felt to many like a surreal vision, was made flesh in the near-empty echo chambers of Germany’s top flight.
Not football as we used to know it but football as it is likely to be for this season and much of next.
Some light at the end of the tunnel for a game facing economic Armageddon. Elite football is a small, cosmopolitan world.
Most Premier League players know some who ply their trade in the Bundesliga and if they don’t, they know a team-mate who does.
If professional football had proved impossible this summer in Germany — where the Covid-19 death toll is less than a quarter of that in Britain — then Project Restart could not have left the ground.
Yet still the English game was holding its breath yesterday for the results of coronavirus testing at all but one club, which were carried out on Sunday and Monday.
A figure much higher than six could have set back plans for a June 19 or 26 resumption, perhaps even scuppered the entire project.
So that figure of 0.8 per cent was greeted with relief by Premier League chiefs, as well as many players who are returning, initially in groups of no more than five.
Those six who tested positive are self-isolating for seven days. And there remains an arduous road ahead over the next month, with the national mortality rate decreasing at a stubbornly slow rate.
More players will likely be found to have become infected as regular coronavirus testing continues.
Southampton’s squad returned to training at the Staplewood Campus on TuesdayCredit: Getty Images – Getty
Few players feel an obligation to play to raise national morale on behalf of the government, especially given the kicking they received from health secretary Matt Hancock over the issue of pay cuts.
But most want to get back out there, even in the emptiness, to help safeguard football’s future.
The players are back to work, the mood is improving, fears are slowly abating, and disbelief has been suspended.
Troy Deeney in coronavirus lockdown warning to other footballers after Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi arrested in 4am row
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
