N’Golo Kante has returned to Chelsea training facility for individual training while Watford captain Troy Deeney is set to join the rest of the team in close contact training.
Recall that after clubs in the Premier League were allowed to resume training in small groups, Kante joined the training on the first day but refused to return to Chelsea training facility the next day due to the fear of contracting coronavirus. The club then granted him permission to stay away from training until he is confident enough to return. Since then, he has been training at home.
In the case of Watford Captain, Troy Deeney, he decided to stay away from training due to the fear that he might endanger his months old son who he said has underlying heart conditions.
Unlike the case of Kante that didn’t attract a lot of opposition, that of Troy has a series of threats from his critics who believe it wasn’t necessary for him to abandon his team because of fear. The Watford talisman told CNN that he was so threatened that some people took to the comment section of his social media posts to wish that his son should contract the virus.
“That’s the hard part for me. If you respond to that, people then go: ‘Ah, we’ve got him’ and they keep doing it”, the 31-year-old defender said.
“In a time where it’s all about mental health and everyone says ‘speak up, speak out, please speak’, Danny Rose spoke out and I spoke out and we just get absolutely hammered and battered for it.
“So people see that and go ‘Woah’ and it’s not just us that gets it, the missus gets direct messages and you’ll be walking down the street and people will be like: ‘Oh, I’m at work, you go back to work’.”
The fear of endangering himself and that of his son was checked when he had a meeting with England’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam. He told CNN that the professor has promised him that he would be properly taken care of.
“He’s been doing very, very good research and there is a lot of goodwill on his part to tell me, ultimately, that I’m going to be looked after as best as they can and, ultimately, there is going to be some form of risk for all of us going back to work,” Deeney said.
The fear of N’Golo Kante and Troy Deeney was amplified by the report of the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom. The report says black men and women are nearly twice as likely to die from coronavirus as white people in England and Wales.
Troy and Kante have to put their fears aside and concentrate on training because they are very important members of their teams. Their clubs have less than three weeks to get the players committed to the game as the Premier League has agreed to restart the season on June 17.
