Arsenal are ready to step up their training preparations if and when football is given the green light to begin preparations for its return.
The Gunners have made their training ground available for individual workouts over the past fortnight and football.london understands plans have been formed that will allow them to move forward in their preparation soon after any change in government policy.
Prime minister Boris Johnson will address the nation on Sunday and is expected to lay out plans for ending the lockdown imposed on March 23. Guidance could subsequently be issued to Premier League clubs over how they may return to action behind closed doors with talks between the two clubs due for Monday.
Arsenal are publicly and privately supportive of playing the season to its conclusion and have taken steps to lead the way for other clubs over training, most notably by opening up their London Colney base. Numerous other Premier League clubs have followed suit.
Gunners head coach Mikel Arteta has been putting together plans for sessions of seven or less participants even whilst his players continue to work out on their own. He spent two hours in conversation with NFL counterpart Sean McVay, head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, earlier this week to gauge ideas on how his work should be adapted to smaller groups.
Arsenal are considering different methods for conducting training in smaller groups without contact with potential options including Arteta and his coaching staff running tailored sessions for attack and defence. The 38-year-old's previous drills since joining in December
Arteta, who initiated the meetings, was joined by technical director Edu for the talks with head of football Raul Sanllehi also dialling in. The Rams are equally keen to learn from Arsenal's succesful albeit limited return to Colney.
Arteta has also been providing his squad with video assignments and said: "With the technology, we know when a player has downloaded the game, when he has done the homework.
"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."
Aside from video work set for them by Arteta the squad have been conducting on-field drills at Colney over the past fortnight. Indoor facilities at the training ground are closed and only five players can use the 10 pitches at any one time. They are expected to arrive alone in training gear, complete their exercises and then return home.
Centre-back Sokratis Papastathopoulos said: "Of course, one footballer is a long way from the other. We have started in groups of five players, located at a distance of 15-20 metres.
"We mainly run…we can’t even exchange passes between us."
.png?w=600)
