Lampard wants solid pre-season ahead of project restart

The Chelsea manager Frank Lampard wants his players to have a proper pre-season ahead of Project Restart.

Project restart is basically about the Premier League targeting a return to training in small groups from May 18 with a view to the 2019/20 season resuming.
This follows following the halting of the league in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It is believed that matches will be played behind closed doors, and talks will be held on Monday, May 11 with a view to finally getting football back on track from June 12.

Chelsea Boss, Lampard is not sure how his players have maintained their fitness levels while

in lockdown and is keen to see that they are in prime condition.
“It was really important, firstly, for me and the staff, to make sure everyone was mentally alright with this sudden change which means you can’t leave the house,” Lampard said via videolink with Chelsea supporter, Dr Panos Theodoropoulos who is also a heart surgeon at Hammersmith hospital.
“Once we got our head around that, we’d try and keep in contact with the players all the time but we’ve given them daily plans. They train in the hour we were given in lockdown and you can be outside, we gave them running plans. 
“They run and then we change the plans every week. We don’t make them run every day, sometimes we make them come off it slightly where they can then do some strength work at home. 
“The hardest thing for us is when you don’t know the return – were so used to building up for a game next week so it’s hard. How many runs can you give them? So we change it up. 
“There’s some weeks where we’ve rested them a bit and then we keep working and staying in contact.’  
“Not only is it a long break but for big parts of that break they’ve been sitting down on the sofa. They haven’t been getting as active as they normally would be.’ Lampard admitted. 
“We will need to play that one by ear and see what period of time we get, whenever we do go back.
“They’re talking about going back in smaller groups, which is how we’ll probably start and that will be more about maintaining fitness and then stepping it up. We need some form of a pre-season and proper training for three or four weeks,” Lampard explained.
Chelsea are in prime position to seal UEFA Champions League qualification as they currently occupy fourth spot in the Premier League standings with 48 points from 29 matches.
The Blues are still in the running in the Champions League despite losing the first leg of their round-of-16 game against Bayern Munich 3-0 at Stamford Bridge.

Lampard revealed that the loss to the Bavarians did not leave him crestfallen as he believed it could have a silver lining in the long run.

“I would like to think that Bayern Munich we will look back on in one or two years’ time and it will be a defining moment for this group because it was a game that kind of put us in our place.
“It was like a “wow, this is a real strong Champions League team here”. I didn’t feel that bad after, disappointed of course, because you go 3-0 and the game is probably gone even with the away leg. 
“But you’re like that’s the level for the young boys, and a few of them were playing that night, and us as a team with our level of quality as players, especially in a team that are clinical with [Robert] Lewandowski, then we need to know that.
“I think they played some really good games with Ajax in the rounds before that and going away to Lille where we performed under pressure. 
“When you look back at the season, our performances against City, we went there an lost 2-1 and played really well for big parts of the game. Every game we’ve played against Liverpool we’ve competed against them and they are comfortably the best team [in the Premier League]” he concluded.