Photo by Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
The Dutch midfielder is happy to be back with his Liverpool teammates, and wants to kick on.
After months of sweating the possibility, albeit a small one, of a “null and void” season, the Premier League took a significant step toward completing the current season with the resumption of training on Monday. Moreover, with just 6 players and/or staff testing positive out of nearly 800 tests, concerns over the safety of a restart should be diminished.
While some players have voiced concerns over the restart, Liverpool’s own Georginio Wijnaldum appears to be eager to get back to battle.
“We all look forward to going back and to play football with each other,” Gini told the club’s official website. “I think that’s the thing that we miss the most because now we had to train alone and we couldn’t do that much, but hopefully we can do more and we can play together instead of alone so we are really looking forward to doing things as a team again.”
“Yeah [I feel ready]. The results were also good because every time we do training the fitness team is looking at how we did and how fit we are, so everything is looking good.
“But of course it’s different when you are on the pitch and when you are playing with a team, different intensity and everything, so I think I am ready for it but we always have to see how ready and how far we are in our fitness.
“But that’s something for later. We are really happy that we can go on the pitch, play with each other and do the nice stuff because that’s what you miss the most and from there you can work to all the other things.”
There will no doubt be other concerns raised about restarting the league between now and then. Some players will not want to risk their health to finish the season, which is a perfectly legitimate concern. However, I imagine most players would like to go back to playing the game that they love, especially after so many were cleared fit in the initial COVID-19 screening.
For now we get to enjoy pictures of Gini’s world-class smile while he kicks some balls around Melwood.
