West Ham could step up training later this week after Premier League vote

The Hammers are currently in Phase One of their return but could move to Phase Two if it is voted through on Wednesday

West Ham’s first team squad could resume contact training later this week if a vote on the matter is passed at the next Premier League meeting.

That is due to take place on Wednesday, where West Ham will once again be represented on the call by vice-chairman Karren Brady.

All 20 top flight clubs are due to hold a video conference where they will be asked to make a decision on moving to Phase Two of training in their latest weekly meeting, held with the aim of getting the Premier League back underway behind closed doors in mid-June.

On Monday morning, the Government released its guidelines for what Phase Two would be. That report says that initial contact training would start with small “clusters” of two or three players and eventually progress to larger groups of four to 12 players, without social distancing possible at all times.

Social distancing will still be the expectation at all other times aside from technical training. Also, it is believed that Phase Two will take away the time constraints currently imposed on training sessions, which stands at 75 minutes,

The league will need 14 of the 20 clubs to agree to the new proposals for it to be given the go ahead and there has been a boost to hopes that it will get the go-ahead after the latest batch of mass Covid-19 tests.

West Ham during the break

At the weekend, the latest results were published by the Premier League and the latest round of testing returned just two positive results from 996 players and staff who were tested, one of those coming from Bournemouth.

There will be another shareholder meeting 24 hours after on Thursday to discuss Project Restart further.

West Ham’s players returned to training last week in groups of no more than five players at a time as Phase One was unanimously voted through by the clubs a day previously.

Hammers players Andriy Yarmolenko, Jack Wilshere and Ryan Fredericks, who nwere all injured prior to the coronavirus outbreak bringing football to a halt, all returned to training last week having recovered from their injuries.