How Leeds United Beat The COVID-19 Lockdown And Prepared For The Premier League

Leeds United’s first two matches back in the Premier League could hardly have been more thrilling. With back-to-back seven-goal thrillers against Fulham and Liverpool, Leeds are making a case for being the team to watch in the 2020/21 Premier League season.

When they came out of the COVID-19 lockdown with a 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City back in June, Leeds United fans must have feared the worst. They were second in the table, with Fulham and Brentford chasing them down, and memories of the previous season’s late collapse were still fresh. But instead of losing five of their last ten games like the previous season, this time they went unbeaten and returned to the Premier League as champions.

Part of that unbeaten run comes down to how Leeds United tackled the COVID-19 lockdown.

“When I talked to staff at all the other clubs, I think we’ve worked harder in the lockdown period than anyone else,” says Rob Price, Leeds United’s head of medicine and performance.

Price was referring to how Leeds United’s players didn’t take a break during the lockdown, as they aimed to keep up the intensity of their training.

He was speaking to me and other reporters through a Zoom chat arranged by VisitBritain, something that itself was unheard of 12 months ago, but is now part of daily life. In between revealing the best restaurants and things to do in Leeds, he gave some insights into how Leeds United are coping with COVID-19.

Leeds United started preparing for COVID-19 as early as January, so when the situation in the UK started becoming more serious in March, plans were already in place. The club had ordered exercise bikes, specific weights, and other equipment and nutritional support for the players to use at home, and then when the lockdown was announced, they made a key decision.

Unlike some clubs, who gave players a few weeks off as a “summer break”, Leeds decided to keep a high intensity program with performance staff working six-day weeks and players doing lots of sprint work, directional work, and work with the ball so that when they returned to group training, they were ready to go.

This wasn’t an easy decision, as nobody could be sure how long the lockdown would last for, and Price said one of the biggest challenges was trying to periodize everything when nobody knows when matches will restart.

Price said that as a result of Leeds’ lockdown training schedule, the players were able to train at the intensity the club wanted and that their physical stats during games were actually better than before the lockdown.

Leeds’ intensive approach has been a feature under Bielsa, with his infamous “murderball” training sessions, and the Leeds fitness and conditioning staff take a “train hard to play easy” approach, with Price saying that the staff need to push players to the extremes to produce the kind of performances Leeds have shown over the past two seasons.

As well as deal with the lockdown, clubs around the country have had to cope with a shortened pre-season, and they will have to deal with a tighter Premier League schedule than normal, with extra midweek rounds.

Marcelo Bielsa rotated his squad less than anyone else in the top ten of the Championship last season, and Leeds made few reinforcements this summer, so he will have to rely on the same core group of players again this season. Price says that the tighter Premier League schedule shouldn’t affect Leeds too much as the Championship’s schedule is more demanding than the Premier League’s, with eight more matches and more midweek games.

When it comes to the short pre-season, Leeds only gave their players between seven and ten days off, allowing them to “truncate” the first few weeks of pre-season as the players were coming back at a relatively high level. Playing friendly matches was a much bigger challenge, as many teams they might have wanted to play hadn’t been tested for COVID-19, so arranging friendlies at the right times wasn’t easy.

And despite all of Leeds United’s plans, COVID-19 could disrupt any Premier League side’s season, either through another lockdown, or through several cases of the virus within the squad.

The start of Paris Saint-Germain’s season was thrown into chaos after several players caught the virus, and some Premier League stars have also had the virus in the weeks leading up to the start of the season.

To try and prevent COVID-19 from decimating Leeds’ small squad, groups like the under 18s, who don’t get regular coronavirus tests, are kept separate from the bubble of players and staff who are tested. The indoor pitch at Leeds United’s training center has been converted into a dressing room and treatment clinic to create a more spread-out and well-ventilated environment. Risk assessment is performed for every activity and GPS is used to ensure players don’t spend too much time in close proximity during training. Price says that these measures are to try to ensure that one case of COVID-19 within the club doesn’t become five or six cases.

Now the season is up-and-running, and Leeds look to build on their win over Fulham when they travel to Sheffield United next weekend. But despite trial events this weekend allowing fans into some stadiums to watch matches, there is always the risk that cases in the UK will increase and cause another lockdown.

Price says that during the first lockdown, everybody learned a lot, and changed their approach and ideas between the start and end of the lockdown. If there were another lockdown, he says “there’s not much we would change,” apart from possibly giving the players a week or so off right at the start.