Montemurro on what happens next for Arsenal Women

Joe Montemurro and his staff are already hard at work in preparation for the 2020/21 season.

But after nearly three months since any of our players featured in a competitive fixture, this is uncharted territory for all involved and changes will be necessary.

“We’ve got plans of when we want to start training again and how we want to lead into the new season, but we’re still waiting on some key dates to make those decisions more concrete,” our head coach told Arsenal.com.

“It’s certainly going to be a different type of off season this year, but I’m sure they’ll benefit from it in more ways than one. It will probably involve a bit of a crossover from the time that they’ve been away from the physical training, the group scenarios and social aspects of football, and now to go away and completely switch off will obviously make it a little bit different.

“It’s an opportunity for us to do things without the day-to-day pressures, and it’s an opportunity for us to do things and go over them and have a look at what works and what doesn’t. We’ve been looking at our key messages, training methods, training modules and loads more, and for me it’s quite exciting because it’s an opportunity for me to introduce some new things and some ideas that will hopefully take us to the next level. I’m excited to get back and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone’s faces again.

“As for when we’ll return to London Colney, we’re in discussion about that now and we’ve actually pencilled in a few dates for our return in July. Obviously we need to look at that build in to the season and what our introduction will be like with individual training and work in small groups. We need to look at all these things, so we’ve done a lot of our planning with contingencies and we’ve left ourselves a little bit of room to move, because there will be some changes and additions and some things we may have to adhere to in terms of medical protocols and movement around the training centre. We’ve got some dates in mind and we’ve told the players when they’ll need to be back for their potential return.”