Players must be protected and not rushed back, urges Sheffield Wednesday boss Garry Monk

The Football League has set itself a July 31 deadline to complete the 2019-20 season, and Championship clubs have nine behind-closed-doors matches to play in that period, plus two or three play-off games.

Although Premier League clubs returned to training on Tuesday, their second-tier colleagues are not due back until Monday, in small groups keeping 2m apart. The Government’s social distancing guidelines will not be lifted until June 1 at the earliest.

The Owls have not played since the 5-0 March 7 defeat at Brentford, and not long after that their Middleton Road training ground closed as they were asked to train alone in lockdown.

Manager Monk hopes this is taken into consideration when deciding when players can be expected to perform competitively again. Coming back too soon could risk injury and, he argues, damage the “integrity” of the Championship.

“One of the things that in the (Championship) managers’ meeting we were trying to get across to the authorities was that, in terms of preparation, if you took a normal situation at the end of a season players will have anywhere between seven to nine weeks off, and they’ll follow a home plan in that period,” he pointed out. “We’ve pretty much been in that same period, eight to nine weeks where the players have been off.

“Yes, they’ve been following home programmes, but they’ll be in similar conditions as they would if they’d finished the season and had a normal summer break. So in terms of preparation this is the biggest concern.

“It seems to be that the authorities want this to be accelerated and done as quickly as possible.

“I hear this word ‘integrity’ a lot. To have integrity, we need a proper period of full contact training to even get these players near to be ready for a game. And let’s not forget that we’re going to have to go into what is highly likely to be a real short, intense period.

“Physically, we have to get them prepared when we haven’t even got phase three (full contact training) signed off yet. We’d need at least four weeks of phase three to even have them ready for a game, let alone nine games in a short period of time.

“This is a big concern for all the managers. Of course, the biggest reason for that is for players and injuries, and their well-being in terms of being able to play a football match. So it’s not just as straightforward as some people think. It’s not about coming back in, doing three or four weeks’ training and playing some games. There has to be much more care.”

Four weeks of contact training would leave the Championship struggling to meet its self-imposed timetable. The plan is to play the outstanding regular-season matches across five weekends and the midweeks in between, then play-offs which would normally involve two-legged semi-finals, but could be reduced to one-off matches at neutral venues.

The League feels it has no choice but to finish by July 31 because most playing contracts expire on June 30. With players due a one-month severance payment if they do not find a new club in July, there is a hope players might be prepared to play then, but not beyond.

Wednesday have 10 senior players out of contract on June 30, and five whose loans are due to expire then.

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