Luton had to formulate a plan to ensure safe return to training

Luton’s head of medical operations Simon Parsell has had to rethink the club’s method of training ahead of their return to the Brache this week.

The club’s players were allowed back under the strict EFL’s Return to Training Protocol and UK Government guidelines on social distancing, which have been set due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to the club’s official YouTube channel, Parsell said: “We have to formulate plans to make sure we bring players back into a safe environment, that is the big thing here, we have to be safe.

“We cannot underestimate that we are still in troubled times, everyone still needs to be alert, we still need to be doing all the things we should be doing to stay safe.

“We’ve had to look at the training ground, had to devise a facility there that allows us to bring them in, allows them to access the training field and get out without socially compromising themselves and also looking at testing protocols that might be needed.

“So yes there’s a plan in place, but still a little way to go until we see some football and we must make sure it’s safe.”

Parsell was also eager to point out that the testing procedures and equipment the players are using isn’t taking anything away from the UK’s front-line workers.

He added: “The testing is not in any way shape or form affecting what is happening in the NHS, it would be very remiss of us to think that we would be above and beyond any of that.

“In relation to any kind of PPE, we are in a pecking order and the NHS, carers will certainly be in front of us to get that equipment.

“No-one could have ever envisaged this and what it would bring and how it would affect everything.

“Those front-line workers, the doctors, nurses and everything, they’ve been outstanding.

"We tend to forget that we have a fantastic system with the NHS.

“If something happens abroad you don’t trust that as much as you trust your NHS, it’s a system that is overrun and it provides wonderful care.

“I can only speak personally, in terms of my son had a kidney transplant and you couldn’t have had better care.

“They’re fantastic in what they do and how they’ve responded to this is nothing short of a miracle really.”