Coronavirus: Will players be fit enough to resume the Premier League season? Experts fear not

The outbreak has effectively forced football into an off-season, but where is the time for players to get match fit to resume the campaign?

Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold trains during the coronavirus outbreak (Instagram)

“What we have is effectively an enforced off-season,” a leading Premier League physio tells The Independent before adding “to expect players to then resume matches without an extended period of training would be a disaster in terms of performance levels and injuries.”

It is closing in on a fortnight since elite football was suspended in England due to the coronavirus pandemic and there will be a minimum of 53 days between the last game in the top-flight and the current provisional return date.

On Monday, Sheffield United became the last team to halt sessions, while Arsenal have scrapped plans to recommence work at London Colney this week.

The varying physical levels across the division is one cause for discomfort as is the absence of a uniform back-to-training date across the league.

In an effort to reduce the upheaval, clubs have armed their squads with individual workout programmes and additional equipment like the Wattbike.

The focus has been on body composition. Regardless of how fit a footballer is, if they are carrying excess weight or lost muscle, the core base to work with in training is limited.

A big priority has been to ensure that a player’s weight stays the same, both in terms of body fat percentage and muscle percentage.

Treadmill programmes, interval sessions, HIIT training and bike sessions have been used to maintain a level of cardiovascular fitness. Accelerations and decelerations have been introduced through short change of direction drills.

With platforms like FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, backroom staff have still been able to regularly keep in contact with the group and monitor their new routines.

Some squads have downloaded the Houseparty app, where they can play games together via video, to maintain a semblance of dressing room culture in isolation.

Psychologists are on call to help footballers deal with what’s happening in the wider world as well as the reality of being an athlete when they can’t be athletes.

Clubs have explained the benefit of carbohydrate personalisation and periodisation, provided players with Vitamin C, D and Zinc supplements, while equipping them with recipes and various ways to stay hydrated.

None of these measures, however, are enough.

“You need greater levels of conditioning because of training specificity,” the physio explained. “To be physically sharp for football, you have to play football.

“No matter how hard you try, you cannot replicate the conditions that you get in training or from matches at home.

“If you think of the summer break, players get individual programmes then too while on holiday, but it is still accepted that they need a pre-season to be fit for games. You can’t now expect them to come in, only train for a week and then get straight into action.”

Managers have repeatedly emphasised the importance of a pre-season, which is not solely about physical shape and tactical demands.

The preparation phase offers a crucial chance to build match minutes safely with clubs starting their schedule against lower-league opposition, gradually raising the quality of team they face along with individual game-time.

Usually, around nine friendlies are required to gain the fitness required to cope with Premier League intensity.

So when it is safe to resume training, players will still need non-competitive contests – possibly in-house initially against the Under-23s and such.

There are fears across the medical and conditioning departments of clubs that the time to generate match fitness will not be afforded to squads.

“I think everything is going to be fast-tracked and you’re going to see players being rushed into games much quicker when they do return to training and that exposes to them to performance-related and injury risks,” as one source put it.

“It’s going to be a balancing act for clubs. Normally you would allow yourself six weeks for pre-season. If in theory, you play a game on May 1 as is how things stand at the moment, it leaves only a month and six days. Clubs are not in training and several haven’t been for more than a week.

“You still need to factor in the friendly games that will be imperative. Without those matches, training can only get you so far as well.”

While players who picked up muscle issues before the suspension of the league will have healed through time, they will still be without the backend of any rehab – the football-specific element.

With a hamstring injury, for example, the process of recovery starts off with a short period of rest, before some safe strength exercises are incorporated.

More complex movement patterns are added in the gym, before the player is taken out onto the pitch, where there is progress around a number of metrics like distance, intensity, acceleration, deceleration and ultimately top speed.

It is not possible for these to be mimicked at home in isolation. It has been a headache for clubs to try and devise a plan to get players at optimum sharpness.

What would be the minimum period of training for teams required before the league can resume? The physio envisages “around three weeks to at least build a little bit of conditioning, strength and resistance into the players so that when the first game comes along they’ve got a chance.”