Watford fitness coach Victor Cervera has said he is preparing the team to try and prevent a spike in injuries when the Premier League returns.

The Hornets will have a busy schedule to complete once the season gets up and running again after it was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak and Cervera wants to make sure his players are physically prepared.

“I've seen the situation in the Bundesliga and it is expected when you have low time to prepare the players for high-intensity matches,” Cervera told the club website. “The perfect scenario is you have no spike in injuries so we are trying to make our programme as detailed and progressive as we can to push the players to be ready for the first match and also the following games.

“We expect the players to be fully ready for the first match. We are not far away and we are now trying our best to push the players in a proper way without building a chronic lead. It needs to be a consistent and planned progression.”

The players returned to full contact training just over a week ago before the league confirmed the restart date of June 17.

Watford's first game comes on June 20 at home against Champions League hopefuls Leicester City and preparations are well underway to try and give them the best start to their nine-game relegation battle.

Cervera said the players have responded well to the initial sessions and that he is pleased to see that they did not lose too much of their fitness during the period in lockdown.

“The players are very good,” he said. “Most have completed 100 per cent of the sessions we have done since we came back and even the double sessions, which have been designed to spread the load. They are responding really well and we are at a good point. They have done well and some of the fitness test results have been of a very high level, which is quite good in my opinion after the break. The big test of the fitness will be when we see the real response from when the games start, but we are working hard towards getting them into the best possible condition and level.

“It's been like a pre-season. It's similar but the only thing is the players didn't stop completely. They took the first steps after lockdown, we see how they responded to training and how they are in terms of fitness. Now it's about progression and progressing all components of the load. We now have the schedule and it's about phasing in the demands they are going to face in competition. We have to train to be ready for these demands."