Jay Rodriguez's public workouts accelerate Burnley striker's return to fitness

With the Barnfield Training Centre closed for business during lockdown the 30-year-old was forced to find alternative locations to carry out his rehabilitation.

Rodriguez settled for a sports field just a few miles away from the club's multi-million pound training base at Gawthorpe, which was far less secluded.

"I used to laugh because I was setting out these cones and I had the programme on my phone," he said.

"I felt like people were watching and thinking 'what is this guy doing?' I remember running around and just thinking 'what do I look like?'

"It's just what we had to do, it's something that I spoke about with the lads. We've had to get the cones out and do different ball drills while people have been coming by and giving us funny looks as if to say 'what are you doing here?'

"It's all been a part of it and we've had to make the best of a strange situation. We've come through it alright so far."

The Clarets frontman has been making good use of the enforced break in the domestic schedule.

Rodriguez twisted his right knee in the 1-1 draw at home to Spurs in March - the same knee which he suffered serious ligament damage to in 2014 while with Southampton - and was expected to miss the initial trip to the Etihad Stadium.

"It was early days when I did it, then we had the lockdown situation," Rodriguez said.

"I was hoping to get back before the end of the season, but with injuries you never know how long they can take to heal and recover and if you have setbacks. You can’t plan for that.

"We had a strict plan in place to return and I’ve stuck to that and ticked every box. It’s been good and now I'm back in full training and ready to go."

Rodriguez has been liaising with physiotherapist Phil Pomeroy since the world was brought to a standstill, managing and maintaining a specialised programme to aid his comeback.

And now the £10m summer signing is ready to return against Manchester City when the Premier League returns later this month.

He said: "Phil’s done a really good job of setting me up with the difficulties of being at home and not having the equipment as we have at the training ground, but I’ve not felt like I’ve missed out that much in terms of recovery.

"I was set up with a really structured plan, day-by-day and week-by-week, of what I needed to do to return to action.

"With my experience of having injuries I know how it works and you always account for setbacks, but I've been good and I've continued to push forward through each stage.

"We've approached it safely and we've made the best of a difficult situation. We've not had the equipment available to us that we have at the training ground, but the results have been very pleasing and I'm very thankful."

Rodriguez added: "The early stages are acute and my knee was looking good prior to lockdown.

"We worked on control, muscle strength and building up the muscles to protect the knee. Then there was the CV [cardiovascular] work, we had a watt bike, which was hard, but good.

"Things like that just keep you going and you can set little targets for yourself; trying to do more reps on a set of lunges.

"We just kept stepping it up and thankfully we reached a stage where I could run outside and slowly build that up. It's been a gradual plan where I've had markers to hit."