Mid-Winter Break

green demon

There has been much speculation about the introduction of a mid-winter break for a couple of reasons 1: To stop footballers receiving the kind of injury that happens more often when slipping and sliding on pitches occurs, and 2: To recharge batteries and get injured players back to full fitness.

Some countries already do this, but they tend to be ones where the winter weather is more predictable. The season will have to be extended to accommodate the lost weeks or there will be more weeks where 2 or more matches have to be played or both. Although I can understand the reason for reason 2, it would actually mean more pressure on players during the busy times and probably, therefore, more injuries as there will be less recovery time.

The speculation is that a winter break would happen in December or January, which would not help players during a cold snap in February (like present). It would mean that if we were trying to play catch up in matches due to an earlier break, the fixture list would be more crowded and February weather like this would play havoc with fixtures, injuries and could affect the outcome of the league.

If we could predict when we got cold weather there may be some mileage in a mid-winter break, but our weather is so unpredictable I believe it could be a disastrous idea if introduced.

Colin129

Pointless, its been mild over the past few weeks, when we'd have been on a break & this might have been the first week back & it snows.

It doesn't work in England, the weather is too unpredictable.

It only works when the climate is a know quantity, like Scandinavia, Russia, Eastern Europe etc

rcoobc

A proper midwinter break would never work in Britain. We could have 2 weeks off then the next 2 weeks would be snowed off. No climate

Wouldn't be surprised to see the teams get 1 week off though, spread over 2 weeks. 10 teams play 1 week have the next week off, 10 teams have a week off then play next week.

The down side would be you are effectively losing 3 midweeks massively increasing congestion elsewhere

However this would mean Premier league football every weekend and a winter break too

Stanley Road

Hollands winter break ended last week

Then the snow came and the temperatures plumeted

It's a waste of time unless the timing is dynamic

Having said that, i am not really sure if its a break intended to co-inside with bad weather or just a break that occurs in the winter period

Zen

Should get of the League Cup first.

But in general, fuck the idea, Christmas without any football would be the death of me, it's almost a pain to have that much time off and no European football to enjoy on top of the bloated English fixtures, I don't know what I'd do with my weeks off without English stuff too.

Gee Male

I hate the idea. Love the football at Christmas, it adds so much to the whole period.

If it ever comes in, it would be either the permanent end of the League Cup (to free up midweeks where league games could be played), or the permanent end of FA Cup games at weekends.

Leave it as it is.

Gio

A mid-winter break would help to maintain players' fitness towards the end of the season - periodisation is a basic tenet of improving physical condition in an annual cycle. However, there's little point in the Premiership because the bulk of the teams would spend any 'break' jetting off for money-spinning friendlies thousands of miles away.

rcoobc

Yup. You would litterally have to ban teams from playing any friendlies over that period. It would probably help different teams in different ways too, had we had a winter break, the top 4 could have been very different over the years with villa, everton and tottenham breaking the monopoly with their smaller squads.

It would help the big teams in the premier league little, but it might give them a better chance in Europe, especially towards the end when important players have had a long long season

Cheesy

Before this season, I would have actually agreed with you, because there was a lot of snow around the Christmas period and lots of games were being postponed.

To be honest though, I think this season has shown us that a winter break would probably be a waste of time. You need it to be certain that there will be a lot of postponements for the break to have a point, but that's not the case here, as the weather is very unpredictable. Unless the winter climate gets a lot worse in Britain, I don't think we should have one.

Liam147

I don't think it'll ever happen. Sky essentially pull the strings here, and knowing that so many people will be watching their coverage of it all over Christmas, with people being off work and the quantity with which football's shown, they wouldn't be happy with it.

Also, it wouldn't help with injures at all. The games will still be played, the question is, will they make the season longer, meaning less rest for summer tournaments resulting in injuries the season after, or do they cram them in down the road, also causing injuries for playing too many games in a short space of time - think of it this way, would you rather play 30 games over 30 weeks with the rest of the year off, or 30 games in 10 weeks, with the rest of the year off?

The 'slipping and sliding' argument carries no weight either, football is a winter sport played in a wet country, and when it's not wet the pitch gets watered anyway. The only time it's dangerous is when the pitch is frozen, but many teams have undersoil heating, and those who don't would just have to call the game off.

jojojo

Spain has one, not for the weather, just to give players a week or so's break. Does it work in terms of fitness? I don't know, I guess you could argue it could be a factor in the CL closing stages and in summer tournaments, but I don't see it, English teams have a good record of final appearances, if not wins. In fact, right now, Barcelona for example look tireder than before the break.

rcoobc

A rather high percentage of Barca players played during the 4(5?) International weekends though. In comparison we've had at least some of our players off, despite our high number of injuries.

711

Weather-wise it would be stupid, as said.

As far as giving players a break goes, I'm all for this, but I think premiership clubs have big enough squads to do it anyway. Where they go wrong is that when they rest a player he still goes through training and attending on a match day just the same, so he isn't really getting a break at all. I would give players individual, and genuine, breaks so they could rest mentally and physically for ten days or so.

rcoobc

I think Fergie gives a lot of players a holiday secretly. To do it publicly would disrespect opponents. Hernandez, Rooney, etc all just disappear from time to time.

We know Rooney had a in season holiday last year.

711

Tevez was allowed off too, but I suspect these are exceptions rather than the rule. I don't actually know though!

Sean_RedDevil

A two week break in January-February would be a good idea imo.

For example
20/1/2013 (Sunday): Matchday 22
21/1/2013 (Monday) -> 27/1/2013 (Sunday): No games and no training
28/1/2013 (Monday): Training is allowed, the clubs can go for a training camp to Spain for 4-5 days
3/2/2013 (Saturday): FA-Cup 4th round, so if a club goes out in the FA-Cup 3rd round then they're having another weekend off

204Red

Two weeks off at the Start of the new year.

Stagger the 3rd round of the FA Cup giving teams a bye as required (NFL style), but making sure each team in the PL gets 2 full weeks off.