Chelsea manager Frank Lampard says that his players will try their best to avoid hugging each other while they celebrate goal even if it is very difficult to do so.
The Covid-19 cases in England keep rising and the death record is also high, and the country remains on lockdown and footballers’ behaviour has been scrutinize lately. The Premier League have released new guidelines this week pointed at limiting contact, instructing “handshakes, high fives and hugs” to be avoided.
“Players don’t want to do the wrong thing,” Lampard stated.
“When they are on the pitch and they score a goal we will try and adapt as well as we can. In a perfect world we would walk back to the halfway line and start again, but with football maybe it won’t quite be the case. I don’t think you can hold players hugely to account unless there is clear flouting of those rules.”
“But we need to do our best. Protocols are in place, they have been hardened recently and I understand why. We will try to do the best as we are told to keep minimising the threat, we know this virus holds.”
“Some people are being asked to work from home, and footballers aren’t,” added Lampard.
“They are putting themselves in an environment where they are potentially in danger but also their family who they go home to, a pregnant wife, a grandparent, a parent, a brother, a sister. We have to understand footballers are human as well.”
“To control the emotions is a fair ask but to dictate emotions on the pitch will be difficult. I hope players can control it, but this beautiful game we all love does bring out emotions.”
Lampard emphasized what happens at Cobham is a different matter.
“We practise social distancing as much as we can in the training ground,” he stated.
“On the pitch it can be difficult at times, clearly, because you have to train and get close to each other, but in training the instinct of the moment shouldn’t grab you as much as it would do in a game when you’re scoring in the Premier League.”
“So it’s definitely something I’ll pass on to the players because you see a lot of these group hugs when they win a five-a-side and that will be something we look at.”
