Graham Potter says that both he and his coaching staff will have to think outside of the box if his Albion squad return to small group training at some point this week.
Albion could be permitted to return to some form of training for the first time in over eight weeks in the coming days, and the head coach spoke about the logistical effects the social distancing rules could have on preparations for a potential return to competitive action in June.
“A part of the job at the moment has been understanding what we’re permitted to do from a training perspective,” he said.
“It’s not a football session as there’s no contact so it becomes a fitness session with a ball, but at least we’ll be able to interact in small groups.
“We have to adapt to do that and come up with useful preparation methods for when we do start to play football.
“At the same time, we have to make sure we build on the work the lads have been doing from a fitness perspective over these last few weeks and not undo any of that.”
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Potter was also asked about the possibility of including some of the under-23 squad in his sessions in the coming weeks after their Premier League 2 campaign was brought to an end last month.
“At the moment the idea is to keep the first team group we’re working with as small as possible and that makes sense at this stage,” he added.
“There is a certain number of people we can have at the moment in the initial stages. We’ll go through the protocols and make sure everyone can get used to the new ‘normal’.
“As I understand, at stages two and three of the protocols we have the possibility of that type of movement from outside of the first team group if we need it. That’s how we worked before the virus with members of the under-23 squad training with us.
“We don’t know the details yet; we need to know what those stages two and three look like in more detail to be sure.”