Anwar El Ghazi admits he is struggling to adapt to life without football with the Premier League suspended during the coronavirus crisis.
The English top flight will not resume until April 30 at the earliest due to COVID-19, with El Ghazi’s Aston Villa fighting to avoid relegation from the top flight.
Like all of their top flight rivals, Villa’s players are attempting to maintain their fitness away from the club’s Bodymoor Heath training ground, but El Ghazi is finding it tough to create a structure for his days.
He said: ‘Training is suspended and right now I'm still at home. It's a really strange feeling. The weirdest feeling I have is that I've found that I really don't have a life without football.
‘Usually you get up and go to training, and you are already busy preparing for the next fight.
‘Now I get up and jog a little, do some exercises in the garden, but I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of the day. It indicates that football is really my life.’
Villa are 19th in the table, two points adrift of safety, although they have a game in hand on the other clubs trying to beat the drop.
When the Premier League finally resumes, Dean Smith’s team are due to face Chelsea at Villa Park. Their last match before the shutdown was a 4-0 defeat at Leicester on March 9.
