Premier League will play Russian roulette with players’ fitness if they do not get FIVE weeks training before restart

THE PREMIER LEAGUE will play Russian roulette with players’ fitness if they do not get FIVE weeks of training before the season restarts.

English football has been suspended until at least April 30 because of coronavirus. That means players face at least an eight-week lay-off.

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And while clubs plan to give stars three weeks of training before a possible resumption at the start of May, fitness expert Raymond Verheijen believes preparation is nowhere near good enough to get up to match speed without  injuries.

Verheijen, who has worked at Barcelona, Manchester City and Wales, said: “My message would be to only restart with proper preparation.

“Otherwise you will be gambling and playing Russian roulette with the health of players.

“The off-season is normally four weeks and we have a four to six-week pre-season for players to regain fitness.

“But in this case players will be inactive for seven or eight weeks so three weeks of training is the absolute  minimum — it should be more.

“Fitness levels will be lower now than when they return from  off-season because there’s longer inactivity.

'PLAYERS WILL NEED FRIENDLIES'

“A simple way of thinking about this is during an off-season you go from zero to ten in three weeks.

“Now the players will be at -2 or -3 so they will need four or five weeks of training, plus they will also need friendly games.

“If they do not get enough preparation time there will be a spike in injuries.”

The schedule for the rest of the Prem season has yet to be decided.

But players are likely to be tested to the limit in a squeezed calendar to play out the nine or ten matches of the campaign remaining.

Dutchman Verheijen said: “The real issue is  injuries. You don’t need to be Einstein to work that out.

“If you rush players they will get injured even before the games.

“This is because they will start a long sequence of games either with too little fitness or the intensity  will be high and they will be tired.

“Players will start to accumulate fatigue between games and you start the next game failing to fully recover.

“Your nervous system will get slower and the messages from the brain to the muscles become slower.

"That’s why players get ACL, knee or hamstring injuries. The ACL is the worst and injuries such as that cost clubs a lot of money.”

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Clubs like Arsenal and Chelsea closed their training grounds  after positive tests for Mikel Arteta and Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Players have been self-isolating at home and several have posted pictures and videos working out on treadmills or exercise bikes.

But Verheijen is worried some are not doing the right type of training.

He said: “Footballers are more sprinters than  marathon runners. They need high tempo, intermediate work.

“They also need to be doing strength and core exercises to keep their muscles at the right level because they are underloaded at the moment.”

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Verheijen believes players can use the time to study their performances and improve.
He added: “The analysis department could contribute to tactical evaluation and the development of the team.

“Otherwise players will start floating around without a purpose. The more that  happens,  the more difficult it will be to get them back on track when football returns.”