In the past couple of days, significant steps have been taken towards the resumption of Chelsea’s season, three months after the last game we played.
On Friday, the fixture dates for the first three Premier League games following the resumption were announced, plus the rescheduling of our FA Cup quarter-final. Then yesterday the players were inside Stamford Bridge for the first time since the lockdown, for an in-house game as part of the training ramp-up towards competitive action once again.
Shortly after that session had finished, Frank Lampard spoke to the official Chelsea website to give his first reaction to how the new fixture list is looking, and to report on how his squad’s preparations are progressing.
Having had time to digest the dates of the forthcoming games, he had this to say:
‘We’re all excited. We were waiting to see when the games would be. I had presumed they would be in the same order, but the Manchester City game [which had been postponed due to the FA Cup quarter-finals] was of interest, where that was going to go.‘It’s an extra game in week one, but more than anything we’re just excited to have confirmation of the dates. We’ve been waiting for a date to work towards in terms of how we’re working in pre-season, so we are particularly happy to get the first date of the Aston Villa game. Then we know the games are coming pretty quickly after that. It’s important we get our preparation right.’
