England in mid winter

[brite blu sky]

With Barry calling for a winter break, im just wondering if he has a point.

Can anyone recall if any Premiership players of any team performed well in the WC?

off the top of my head i can only think of deJong.. and he is a machine.

Fabregas didnt play much
VanPersil wasnt good
Shrek was hopeless

[Wooders]

they don't have a winter break in la liga and spain won it

[King Kev]

Trying to predict when the worst weather will be in this country is unpossible, just ask the Met Office!

[brite blu sky]

they don't have a winter break in la liga and spain won it

They do have a break.. they dont play the last 10 days of december.. and crucially dont play multiple fixtures over xmas.
So from the 19th-20th Dec to 2nd Jan

[Esky]

I couldn't care less about the England side and always love the Boxing Day game. Big no to this from me.

[brite blu sky]

I couldn't care less about the England side and always love the Boxing Day game. Big no to this from me.

I couldn't care less either as i really dont like England Big team as i have said many times on here, but im asking the question cos im wondering if Barry has a point.. Which Premiership players had a good tournament?

[the_georgian_genius]

Christmas and New Year games should be left alone, they are traditional and i love them.

I would have a two week break in the first two weeks of January. January is shit, everyone is either dieting or skint after Christmas and New Year.

[Murph]

The clubs would need to be stopped from taking advantage of any break by flying half way round the world playing lucrative friendlies. I wouldn't be against a short break of 2 weeks as long as the players got a week on a beach followed by a weeks training, otherwise it's pointless.

[Moonchesteri]

I couldn't care less about the England side and always love the Boxing Day game. Big no to this from me.

Agree 100%.

[mr_nool]

Christmas football is a really strong tradition, which I would like to be kept.
It would also make more sense to have a shorter season during WC/EC years instead of prolonging it by squeezing in a break in the middle.

[ronk]

It's a strawman argument because none of the top billed stars performed, not just prem ones and England's failure certainly stems from other causes.

That said a winter break would be a good idea but would be difficult to implement because of the role of Christmas fixtures and the wider cup schedule.

There are ways around that, but it would take certain compromises, i.e. match limits that would effectively mean that regular internationals would be excluded from cup competitions (if they were also playing a lot of league matches).

European Cups are finished from early/mid December to mid February so there's plenty of time. A 2 week break is only one weekend without football. A 3 week break could be achieved with only 2 weekends off.

Now, there are 10 matches per weekend sitting in 7 international TV timeslots, 5 domestic on a typical weekend. So having 6 teams not play on a weekend would basically not disrupt TV schedules. 4 teams would mean 5 slots. That means it would take 10 weeks to institute a winter break without disrupting TV schedules and only cancelling 2 matches per weekend. Those matches would need to be fitted in somewhere else though and there'd be some cup issues.

A winter break still means time without watching your team but we get that with the international windows to an extent anyway and the inconvenience could be minimised for a staggered winter break because it would not be especially difficult to work the schedule so teams could be guaranteed a home match before and/or after the break so they never go too long without playing in front of season ticket holders.

Who breaks when could be decided by lottery, on rotation or worked around European football schedules. Some might find that easier for planning family holidays around a time when they know they're not going to be missing football.

[mcfctm]

International football is already ruining club football. It annoys me that I don't have premiership football to watch this weekend because of the international fixtures so a winter break would be a bad idea in my opinion.
Plus it's always amusing watching linekar and co trying to fill an hour and a half gap with only 2 matches to show because the rest got called off due to snow.

[ashton287]

the football schedule is already packed from september onwards especially for any team in the CL/EL most of which will go further in the league and fa cup aswell so having a winter break would just mean players have even more games to play in a shorter time which would leave them more burned out when it comes to the tournaments, plus i like boxing day football.

It's a daft excuse. they have a rest inbetween the season finishing and competitions starting there just pissed off that they couldnt go on holiday for as long as they wanted and want a mid season holiday to make up for it. lazy bastards.

[mcfc1632]

I do not understand this winter break argument ??

If they had a break at xmas for a few weeks - would they then have not finished the season a few weeks later and then gone straight to the WC with a shortened end of season break - therefore more knackered and less chance to get over injuries??

[Abu Dhabi]

18 teams

tougher and fresher

[costys99]

Forgive me if im wrong

but didnt they have a Mid winter break last season all be it in enforced by the weather im sure we missed at least one weekend and possibly a mid week match due to the snow this year so isnt that just the same as a winter break yet we were still crap.

England have allways been crap except the year we won home advantage the press need to stop building these players up to be world beaters and be more realistic about there ability

[King Kev]

The clubs would need to be stopped from taking advantage of any break by flying half way round the world playing lucrative friendlies. I wouldn't be against a short break of 2 weeks as long as the players got a week on a beach followed by a weeks training, otherwise it's pointless.

Nail on the head mate. There is no way that clubs would allow their players to rest when they could be used to raise money in China, Australia or wherever.

The idea is a non-starter.

[Ted Hughes]

Messi, Ronaldo had winter breaks & were way below full tilt. Italy's players had a winter break, how about France? Tevez, DeJong didn't & were fine. I wonder if Adam Johnson would have looked tired if picked? Or Crouch for that matter if he'd played? Upson looks toally fucked now & yet is rumoured to be playing tonight. What possible excuse can there be for that? Perhaps he needed a summer break?

The same excuses used to explain why the same faces have let us down yet again & the manager performed like a wanker (& still is doing). Fuck all to do with a winter break.

[CitizenYank]

I don't thing a winter break would do much given, given the stress the game puts on their bodies and the high level of training they must keep. A couple of weeks won't do enough to a player's fitness level, but allow a £220k a week player to go to Barbados and get in a car accident. I also think that restricting National Duty will just put them at odds with the football club.

However, I think the major problem is largely caused by foreign and domestic cup competitions. This can be remedied with an open attitude to a few things.

Now I haven't followed football my entire life, but, (from the top four down) a Premier League team can appear in: UEFA Championship League, UEFA Europa League, Carling Cup, FA Cup; that is a whole lot of non-league football. And while the FA Cup works because it is a knockout competition, other competitions have stages with multiple matches?? Overusing players you need healthy in April, lack of quality competition (Faroe Islands, cough cough,) multiple games per stage to further aggravate injuries--do these negatives have an effect on the positives? It doesn't help ticket sales, we drew just over 23 thousand against Timisoara. And that was at Eastlands. (Shit. I'd take the loss in revenue just to avoid the loss of losing, Yaya, Johnson or Tevez.)

Sorry if I am being Mr. Buzzkill here. I think about this shit WAY too much. I know.

We long to win some silver, any silver, but shouldn't we look at the quality of our play as well as the amount we play. The club officials don't give a shit; the Sheik is fitting the bill and Mancini takes the blame. But from an overall competitive standpoint, our players may perform better by giving them a few more days at home.

Heck I don't know. Just a random thought.

[ronk]

It's easy to see that players and teams are getting tired at times and it can affect performance. It's also clear that existing strategies for protection players from strain aren't really all that effective.

Gerrard, for example, isn't particularly overplayed and gets matches off. He still managed 59 matches before club friendlies. It's easy to lose track of just how much international football there is, Gerrard has a modest enough (considering) 85 caps but has started 106 European/other games. Playing in 5 competitions can quickly add up and maybe more should be done to rotate, in the interests of getting more from the same players in the big matches.

Ironically, squads are getting smaller and pressure is increasing on the same small number of players. We can see that they're not really managing the pace all that well. A winter break is one thing that could help, certainly it would give a chance to heal bruises that get kicked every week and give knees that swell up a chance to recover slightly.

If everyone has to play their best team every week then it gets hard, but if both teams rest (a small number of) players then there's no risk.