Brentford goalkeeper David Raya is gearing up for nine cup finals when the Sky Bet Championship season resumes. It was announced yesterday that the Championship season will resume on Saturday 20 June. The Bees currently sit fourth in the table and restart the season with a game away to Fulham, who are third, before facing West Bromwich Albion, who are second, six days later.

The season was halted in March due to the Covid-19 pandemic and it will be almost 100 days between games when fixtures resume. Brentford are four points behind Fulham and ten behind West Brom, who occupy the second automatic promotion place. David spoke to the PA News Agency last week and said he was pleased to have a date to resume, which was confirmed in late May, and knew what Brentford needed to do.

“It’s going to be nine finals back-to-back to achieve what we want to achieve," said the goalkeeper. “I always thought we would play again and now we’ve got a date. It’s not the best having three weeks of training before nine important games but it’s the same for every single team. It depends how you’ve come back from training on your own.”

Brentford resumed training on 25 May and are just starting their third week. They are on a countdown to the first fixture and David said he was pleased things were beginning to return to normal for players. He added that he fully supported the process to get football matched back on.

“Now we’re back it’s a relief everything is slowly going back to normal," he said. "It’s been a bit of a shock because it’s something new for everybody. But the break was needed because the health of everyone is more important.

"The testing isn’t pleasant but it’s something you have to get done. We have it done twice a week and we need it for the safety of everyone, it’s the right thing to do if we want to carry on with training. We knew the Government and PFA would do the best for the safety of the players. I wasn’t scared or nervous. We knew it would be a safe place to be and train.”