Impact of Covid-19 diagnosis on ex-Sunderland winger revealed as he nears return to action

The former Sunderland winger returned to training this week after missing the past two weeks due to testing positive for coronavirus.

Although he was asymptomatic, the missed time on the training pitch due to self-isolation has taken its toll on the Molyneux as the 2020-21 National League season kicked off.

And manager Dave Challinor feels the player is still a couple of weeks away from being able to start a match.

“He’s fine, he’s trained this week but it just shows the effect that the illness can have on you physically even with very little to no symptoms,” said the Pools boss.

"Mols hadn’t trained with us for two weeks and just to put it into context when Luke trained on Monday, we used the GPS and the data.

"The lads who played did a session and were in the [heart rate] red zone as we call it for only a minute during that whole session, the lads who hadn’t played were involved in a top up session and they were in the red zone for six minutes while Mols was in it for 26 minutes.

"That comes down to heart rate and exposure, so doing the same work, he had to work in that red zone where you’re pushing yourself for 20 minutes longer than the players doing the same sessions, so it has knocked him back so we’ve got to be careful with what we do with him."

The ‘red zone’ represents between 90 and 100 per-cent of someone’s estimated maximal heart rate and the amount of time spent in the red zone is a key fitness indicator.

And due to Molyneux’s reduced fitness levels as a result of self-isolation, he will have to wait for his first start of the new season.

“He’s probably a couple of weeks away from being able to start a game,” Challinor admitted.

“What might happen because we’re lacking in numbers is that he may be involved on the bench and we can maybe use him as an impact sub if we need to.

"At the moment, he’s probably only got 15 or 20-minutes in him at the level we want to use him at really. He’ll be involved in training for a top-up on Thursday on his own and I imagine he’ll travel which gives him another opportunity to get a session for us on the way down and we’ll see where he is for Saturday.”

The fact that an asymptomatic case of coronavirus will likely keep Molyneux from starting the opening five matches of the new season hints at the potentially devastating impact the virus could have on squads across the country this season.

“The detraining involved in professional football is massive especially when you have to isolate,” Challinor added.

“You have to isolate and do nothing and even if you’ve got a treadmill or something at home, the guidelines are that you don’t go above 70% of your heart rate so if you’re doing absolutely nothing for two weeks, the amount you lose in that time is massive.

"Again, there has been stuff going around about ‘long covid’ and the long term effects it might have.

"It’s a respiratory disease ultimately and especially for an athlete, it can have huge impacts.

"If you did nothing for two weeks as a professional footballer, you’d lose some anyway. When you’ve had an illness where no one really knows the long-standing damage it might do to your lungs or something like that, it can be a big one.”

Pools are currently operating with a slightly depleted squad with David Parkhouse away on international duty, Gary Liddle out with a groin injury and Molyneux still fighting to get back to full fitness.

Mason Bloomfield is also a slight doubt for the weekend after rolling his ankle at Chesterfield and young forward Joe Grey remains unregistered due to a contractual dispute with the FA.

This leaves Pools with just 12 fully-fit senior outfield players available for Saturday’s match at Madienehad.

Despite Challinor demanding a lot of his players to get them as fit as possible, he will not be pushing individuals to return before they’re ready.

"What we’ve got to do is make sure that, regardless of who the player is, they’ve worked their socks off for nine weeks to get themselves physically fit and it would be daft if they were to do nothing for two weeks and then we push to get them back and they suffer a muscle injury or something like that,” the Hartlepool manager continued.

“We’ve got to be really careful, the thing we’ve got to guard against I suppose are the player’s expectations.

"The players will think, and Mols would have been the same, thinking I’m all right and then training becomes a real eye-opener.

"We’ve done some physical testing that gives us objective measures in terms of the 2000 metre run. We were going to do the 2000 metre run with Luke but we didn’t need to and he understands where he’s at.

"The main thing is that we protect the players but the players need to understand as well and once Luke trained once, he recognised where he was and how much he’d lost.

"It is a good thing in a way because now we start a quick process to get him back to where he was.”

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