Stoney already planning for 2020/21 season

Have you had a chance to speak to your staff and players about this?

“Yeah, we’ve had regular contact throughout, and obviously once we knew that the league was going to be heading towards termination, I was always very transparent with my players and staff about the conversations we were having with the FA. I think the biggest thing is to make sure the players and staff have clarity where things are uncertain, but they know the conversations that are happening and the direction they’re going in. As soon as I knew, I shut the players down because it was mentally really tough in this period of isolation to keep training, not knowing what they’re training for and what the end goal is, and if this is going to happen. As a player, you always set your goals on times: when you’re back in, or when your next game is. They didn’t know that, so as soon as we had the information I shut them down. I told them: ‘Three weeks rest now’, which is really important, so that we know when we come back in they’ve had that rest. The downside is that they’re not going to get away on holiday, which is vital for them really during this time. But they can rest mentally from the football. They can have less contact with us – I think it’s credit to us that we’ve stayed in so much contact with them. I asked them how much contact they want in these three weeks, and they want some time away, which is great because it means they’ve had the support. We’ve had a lot of tasks going on, a lot of conversations, and I think generally we’ve done a good job in terms of supporting the players and staff in a really difficult time.”

Will they all have a sort of summer holiday now? They’ll take that summer break and you’ll reassess things in a few weeks’ time?

“Yeah, we’re obviously following the government guidelines which are seeming to ease, which is a positive sign. At the moment they’re on three weeks’ rest and then they’ll have individual programmes, which they would have had anyway, regardless of this. Then, hopefully, by the time we’re aiming to get back in July, things will have eased and we’ll know what protocol we need to follow to get them back in. I’ve got a bit of a phased approach this year anyway because there was always going to be a big gap this year because of the Olympics. We were due to finish on 17 May and not play until 25/26 September. That’s a long time! We were going to bring them back in for a certain period, then let them go off again with a programme for a few weeks in August. Hopefully by then they can get a few weeks away somewhere if that’s possible, and safe. Then we’ll come back and start a proper pre-season. We’re looking to phase them and we’ll very much be guided by medical protocols and what we can and can’t do.”