Chelsea's coach Frank Lampard has revealed that the club had at least 10 players forced into quarantine as a precautionary measure against the coronavirus during the pre-season.
Christian Pulisic, Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori, and Emerson Palmieri were required to self-isolate amid the COVID-19 pandemic during the pre-season, Goal.com reported.
"It's been disruptive. In lots of ways, I'm very fortunate. I know we're bringing in players we wanted to bring in and already we have a strong squad here. But we had a lot of quarantine, I think at one point it was double figures. So that knocked a lot of the training we could do in that first week and then I lost pretty much all the players to international break so I haven't been able to work with them," Goal.com quoted Lampard as saying.
Lampard also said that he has had a talk with his team about not breaking COVID protocols and following every precaution possible to remain healthy and fit.
"I have addressed it with the players already. I think it is something we all need addressing; this is a strange time in everybody's life over the last months. We have seen that with how the government has spoken in some of the wording and messaging that has come out in the last week and I think it is important that we all have a little check as it is human nature slightly to relax as the situation changes," Lampard said.
"We will all do our best on that front. We all know the situation we are in, the procedures and protocols and we will try and adhere to them as much as we can considering a physical-contact team sport that we are doing," he added.
Last week, England's Mason Greenwood and Phil Foden were dropped from the side's Nations League games as they broke lockdown rules.
Chelsea will lock horns with Brighton in their first match of the Premier League 2020-21 season later today.
( With inputs from ANI )
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