Everton defender Jonjoe Kenny, who is on loan at German side FC Schalke 04, has spoken about returning to training for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic suspended football.
Bundesliga clubs became the first clubs in major European football to return to training, with German clubs allowed to resume their training earlier in the week, and Kenny has explained some of the procedures that the Schalke squad have had to follow to meet government guidelines.
However, the amount of players training at once varies state-to-state across Germany, with Schalke allowed up to seven players training together as it stands.
Kenny signed for the German side in the summer of 2019, joining on a season-long loan deal from the Toffees, and had enjoyed life abroad before the coronavirus pandemic took its toll on the footballing world.
“You can’t have any contact when you’re training and the coach spoke to us, but we’re lucky enough that we are training, we are getting six or seven players on the field together,” Kenny told BBC Radio 5 Live.
"You have to stay two metres away from each other. There’s a lot of cameras looking and trying to catch anyone out.
"You have to stay on top of stuff and make sure you do stick to the rules. The sessions that the coaching staff at Schalke have put on have been brilliant.
"The lads have loved it. The lads have enjoyed getting back to it, even though you’re not getting contact and you think there’s not a lot of stuff to do, they come up with some training sessions for us.
"It’s good to get back on the balls and back to feeling sharp again, really."
The 23-year-old has also revealed that reading former footballers’ autobiographies and listening to podcasts have been his coping mechanism during the coronavirus outbreak.
However, Kenny admitted that he does easily become bored, but insisted there is more important things to be worrying about at the moment.
"The books I like are the ex-footballer ones. I’ve got a few, the likes of Peter Crouch, I’ve read his two books,” Kenny added.
"I had the Ant Middleton one, I read that. I listen to football podcasts; you know, ex-footballers speaking about their life and the journey, I put them on whilst I’m doing stuff around the apartment.
"That takes an hour, or an hour and a half out of your day. It’s stuff like that, that keeps me going, really. Obviously, you have times in the day where you do get a bit bored.
"But there’s a lot more important things going on in the world than me worrying about being bored."
