Fleetwood Town's big build-up in 'new normal'

Highbury will stage the first leg of Fleetwood's play-off semi-final against Wycombe in just over a week's time

Coyle confident as preparations are stepped up

The ‘second phase’ of training is now under way in line with coronavirus guidelines, meaning that full contact is allowed between the players and 11v11 games are possible.

Fleetwood played one of these away to Wigan Athletic on Tuesday and another behind-closed-doors friendly is planned before the opening leg against the Chairboys at Highbury a week tomorrow.

When formal training resumed this month after the players had been away for 12 weeks, social-distancing rules applied and training was restricted to small groups.

Head coach Joey Barton expressed the concern that there could be very limited opportunities for 11v11 games before two of the biggest matches in the club’s history against Wycombe.

Tuesday’s game at Wigan’s DW Stadium was a most welcome workout. The Gazette understands the friendly was played in two halves and ran slightly short of 90 minutes, with all of Fleetwood’s available players taking part.

A club spokesman said: “The squad are back to full training now and the Wigan game was a very good workout for us.

“It hopefully helps everybody to get more match-sharpness, especially as some of the Wigan players had played in their Championship win at Huddersfield Town on Saturday.”

What is certainly not back to normal is the training-ground routine. The spokesman added: “The players arrive in kit, put their boots on and literally go straight on to the training ground. Then they are straight into their cars afterwards.”

Captain Paul Coutts has described the experience as “really quite strange with no socialising” and the coronavirus tests take some getting used to as well.

The midfielder told the Evening Express in his native Aberdeen: “It’s not the best experience but it’s something that has to be done and it definitely puts your mind at ease.

“But the doctor keeps reminding us that the test is out of date as soon as you get the results and you could catch it in between times, so it’s really important for us to follow the guidelines.”

The EFL has revealed there were no positive results from the latest round of coronavirus tests among the four League One clubs back in training. Positive tests were recorded at two of the clubs last week.