We’re seemingly edging closer to the resumption of the Premier League in light of the coronavirus pandemic as Project Restart gathers apace.

The aim for England’s top flight is to resume on June 12 behind closed doors at neutral venues and with a long list of health and safety measures put place to safeguard player welfare.

The Premier League was halted on March 12 after Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta contracted Covid-19 – meaning two months have passed since there was competitive action.

The shutdown of the campaign has resulted in players having to maintain their fitness via various ways at home as the British government continues to enforce lockdown rules.

With all the relevant authorities set for talks within the next week about the next phase for the Premier League, Sportsmail looks at how the traditional ‘Big Six’ have been faring.

ARSENAL

Arsenal were the first Premier League side to return to training when they made their London Colney base accessible to its players once again from Monday 27 April.

Players have access to training pitches on a strict rotational basis, with those exercising in small groups while maintaining appropriate social distance within Government coronavirus guidelines.

Groups of four of five players can perform conditioning exercises together while being spread out among the training ground. They are expected to drive in to the training ground alone in kit and leave without socialising, eating or showering.

Beforehand Arteta – who is now fully recovered – had revealed he’d been setting individual assignments for every player in his squad.

They were expected to analyse videos of their performance and discuss the findings with their boss.

‘With the technology, we know when a player has downloaded the game, when he has done the homework,’ he told the club’s official website. ‘They have to report everything to me! So they cannot escape. And to be fair, they’ve been really good.

‘They have to tell what they did wrong or right and why this scenario happened and if they could have avoided that before it actually happened.

‘A lot of times it’s just about communication, but other times it’s about the positioning, it’s about the body shape, the technique of how they have to defend.’

CHELSEA

For Arsenal’s London rivals Chelsea the picture is different. The Blues are yet to resume training at their Cobham base and manager Frank Lampard has expressed his concerns over their fitness in lockdown.

The Stamford Bridge outfit have been personally affected by coronavirus when winger Callum Hudson-Odoi contracted it.The England international was the first Premier League player to test positive for Covid-19. Like Arteta he has thankfully recovered.

Chelsea’s first-team players who have been abroad, such as Kepa Arizzabalaga, Willian and Pedro, were asked to return to London by May 3 as the club readies itself for training.

Chelsea’s Cobham training complex has been closed since the middle of March. However, Stamford Bridge was opened earlier this month for players who live locally to train on the pitch but only individual sessions were permitted.

With Cobham having been off-limits, Lampard has given his players daily plans remotely where they have been expected to train in their hourly allowance to go outside.

Lampard said: ‘It was really important, firstly, for me and the staff, to make sure everyone was mentally alright with this sudden change which means you can’t leave the house.

‘Once we got our head around that, we’d try and keep in contact with the players all the time but we’ve given them daily plans. They train in the hour we were given in lockdown and you can be outside, we gave them running plans.

‘They run and then we change the plans every week. We don’t make them run everyday, sometimes we make them come off it slightly where they can then do some strength work at home.

‘The hardest thing for us is when you don’t know the return – we’re so used to building up for a game next week so its hard. How many runs can you give them? So we change it up.

‘There’s some weeks where we’ve rested them a bit and then we keep working and staying in contact.’

LIVERPOOL

On Thursday it was announced that Liverpool had partially reopened their training base at Melwood.

The runaway leaders voluntarily suspended their base after the Premier League was suspended and have since had their players on tailored programmes to ensure they maintain fitness.

On top of that group sessions have been conducted through video conferencing software, such as Zoom.

The Liverpool Echo report that only a maximum of three players will be allowed into Melwood with only the training pitches accessible – no other facilities.

They report that no coaching staff are going to be present either, with only the medical team present.

The site will only be open a couple of days a week and so far less than 50 per cent of Jurgen Klopp’s squad have decided to make usage of this – with the rest wishing to remain at home.

MANCHESTER CITY

Like the aforementioned clubs above, Manchester City have given their stars tailored programmes to stay fit.

City had initially their players to be prepared to return to training on May 4, but that is not the case as of yet.

To maintain the social aspect of training, while being in lockdown, first-team members have engaged in group calls while they’re working out. In April, Kyle Walker shared via social media footage of some of City’s squad training together – a session that featured several of the sports science team.

However, star striker Sergio Aguero has been honest in admitting that players are ‘scared’ about the possibility of infecting their families after coming into contact with other stars.

‘The majority of players are scared because they have family, they have children, they have babies, parents,’ he said.

‘When we go back, I imagine that we will be very tense, we will be very careful, and the moment someone feels ill, you will think: “What’s gone on there?” I hope there is a vaccine so all this ends.’

MANCHESTER UNITED

Manchester United are still instructing their players to train at home with the club not set to return to their Aon Training Complex for another 10 days.

Red Devils midfielder Andreas Pereira revealed that he and his team-mates won’t return to their Carrington base until May 18 when speaking to Globo Esporte.

‘We had a meeting and were told that if everything is going well, we’ll be back in training on May 18 in groups of six,’ he outlined. ‘If that goes well, a week or two later, we’ll be able to train as a group.

‘There will be six players training initially and there won’t be much contact between us. We’ll still be separated and training in different parts of the pitch. Those precautions have to be followed.

‘I don’t know who’ll be in my group yet.’

Speaking on Friday, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said that stars who have been abroad should be back by the end of the week as they prepare for Project Restart.

In the meantime, players have been engaging in running and yoga sessions in correspondence with the fitness staff.

‘We have not been in the training ground yet, we have kept to the rules and the boys have been good, they have kept to their training at home in their gardens,’ he told the The Football Show on Sky Sports.

‘The training ground is locked, I think the doctors are the only ones who have been there.

‘But the boys have been good, getting up in the morning doing running sessions, yoga session and the fitness staff have been very good with them.

‘It is difficult for players to keep focus and stay ready all the time because mentally they have to stay ready. That sharpness you need to get from games and training and that is far away I think.’

TOTTENHAM

A day after Arsenal announced that they were opening up their training facilities, Tottenham followed suit on April 28.

In a statement, Spurs announced that they were making a limited number of their pitches available for their first-team squad to use for individual running sessions.

Only one player would be allowed on one pitch at any time as the club looked to adhere to social distancing guidelines laid out by the government.

To ensure safety of one another too, each player was told to travel independently and arrive at the facilities already dressed in training gear before returning home immediately after they have concluded their session.

The opening of the facility, will have come as welcome relief to Spurs’ hierarchy after the club landed themselves in hot bother.

Spurs manager Jose Mourinho was forced to apologise for flouting lockdown rules in April when he was spotted taking a one-on-one training session with midfielder Tanguy Ndombele.

The pair were photographed by members of the public on Hadley Common, in Barnet, with the Portuguese boss wearing full Tottenham attire.

Two members of the public also joined in with the running session, after which Mourinho admitted: ‘I accept that my actions were not in line with government protocol and we must only have contact with members of our own household.

‘It is vital we all play our part and follow government advice in order to support our heroes in the NHS and save lives.’

Mourinho and Ndombele were not the only pair caught breaking government instructions, with defensive pair Davinson Sanchez and Ryan Sessegnon spotted jogging side-by-side in the same area.

Serge Aurier has also been filmed on Instagram alongside Moussa Sissoko and a friend on separate occasions.

Source:- allfootballapp