The season's schedule - it's madness right?

[romufc]

I know the season is compressed and everyone blames the authorities about the schedule. These are professional players, playing for massive teams with the best conditioning staff.

They all want to play UCL which means on a given season, there will be games midweek and weekend, Christmas time has always been a tradition to play games every 3/4 days. I know its a hectic schedule, well then play weakened side in the CL and dont qualify for the next stages if you want less games simple.

If you want to compete in all comps, you expect games to come thick and fast.

Liverpool players have played PL, CL games for 3 years now, the team generally stays the same, last season they went to Qatar and played there every other day, came back into a hectic schedule and won all their games.

 

[Bastian]

The last 3 years mean nothing compared to the coming season. There's hardly been a pre-season, very short holidays (I know some people think the lockdown counted as holidays for rich footballers).

This argument about "if you're a top footballer you just get on with it.." bit, is similar to when people wanted us to field our best 11 against Chelsea in the FA Cup semi finals, even though it was obvious the players were knackered and in desperate need of a rest. That's going to be the case throughout this season, and now with fewer subs and a smaller bench, it won't help at all.

I've said before that the League Cup should have been scrapped to create space in the calendar, but you could make that point about both cups, in fairness.

A few months into the season I think people will be seeing how disastrous this schedule is.

And with the Liverpool example, I find it absolutely extraordinary how they've kept that team fit for so long, without picking up injuries..

 

[bsCallout]

Should be a great opportunity for youth players this year. I expect most teams to copy Liverpool and play a team full of reserves in the two English cups.

All top teams will only play in PL & CL.

The team that should perform best this year is Arsenal, they don't have Europe right?
They've been on a great roll, just won a cup and will have less fixtures than any of the other top teams.

 

[romufc]

Should be a great opportunity for youth players this year. I expect most teams to copy Liverpool and play a team full of reserves in the two English cups.

All top teams will only play in PL & CL.

The team that should perform best this year is Arsenal, they don't have Europe right?
They've been on a great roll, just won a cup and will have less fixtures than any of the other top teams.

Arsenal will potentially have more games than anyone else playing in the Europa League. Playing on Thursday and weekend has always been an issue for teams.

 

[DJ_21]

I don’t like the fact that we’ve had no pre season and other teams like Liverpool have had a full one, we only have 1 friendly and that’s against Villa..

 

[DixieDean]

Nuke the shitty league cup into orbit and reduce Prem to 18 teams.

 

[bsCallout]

Arsenal will potentially have more games than anyone else playing in the Europa League. Playing on Thursday and weekend has always been an issue for teams.

Sorry, I thought they didn't have EL. Do they? I hope so.

 

[flappyjay]

Sorry, I thought they didn't have EL. Do they? I hope so.

They won the FA Cup

 

[romufc]

Sorry, I thought they didn't have EL. Do they? I hope so.

Yeah from the FA cup, good thing for us I guess that they have EL.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

It is totally insane. Particular for Spurs if they advance in the europa league.
We will see massive amounts of rotation for sure.

 

[bsCallout]

They won the FA Cup

Yeah from the FA cup, good thing for us I guess that they have EL.

Completely forgot that was a route to EL. Excellent! That is definitely worse for them than CL is for others.

 

[Lay]

I know it was only the bigger clubs advocating for the 5 subs to continue, but I at least think the teams have missed a trick not having more subs. Would have been good for young players. And I tend to think the 5 subs should have been continued just because of the circumstances.

It's a shame. Expect a lot more injuries and fatigue across all teams this season.

Yeah, I think its madness they haven't gone with 5 subs.

 

[TheLord]

Chelsea start pre-season on Friday. Kinda mad!

This is why they won't really trouble the top two clubs with so many new players who haven't had a proper pre-season, I think.
But then, they'll benefit from having a huge depth in the squad, probably the second-best after City, which is important come winter and all the inevitable injuries.

Kind of evens out, doesn't it?

 

[bosnian_red]

Was just looking at the fixture schedule. So we start September 19th, and then there's International breaks between October 5-16th and November 9th to 20th.
Carabao cup dates are:

• Sept 22/23
• Sept 29/30
• Dec 22/23
• January 5/6
• February 28 (final)

Fa cup dates are:

• January 9
• January 23
• Feb 10
• March 20
• April 17
• May 15 (final)

Champions league dates are (just putting the tuesdays for the number):

• Oct 20
• Oct 27
• Nov 3
• Nov 25
• Dec 1
• Dec 8
• Feb 16/23 (first leg)
• March 9/16 (second leg)
• April 6 (first leg)
• April 13 (second leg)
• April 27 (first leg)
• May 4 (second leg)
• May 29 (final)

Basically what this means is that the way the league schedule is, if we stay in every cup competition, we have a weekend and midweek game every single week until the weekend to weekend gap between January 16th vs Liverpool and the FA cup 4th round on the 23rd.
And then after that I'm pretty sure if we (or whoever) make it to the final of every cup there won't be a week gap for the rest of the season. So twice a week the entire season apart from 1 season... thats brutal.

Looking at it, kind of makes sense to fully rotate for both FA cup and Carabao cup this year and just ignore it. Something will need to be done in general though because next summer is the Euros (and the club world cup starting in summer 2021 to be every 4 years), then the 21/22 season is fecked up with the winter world cup. They have to fully scrap the league cup for any side that makes European competitions as it's a killer. Or clubs should just play full reserve teams. Football calendar won't be normalized until the 2023/24 season probably.

 

[sun_tzu]

De Bruyne referred to this in an interview tonight. It seems so painfully obvious that having no proper holiday, no actual pre-season and then go into a gruelling football season to be then followed by the Euros is madness.

And for teams to start the league maybe two weeks apart.

The league should have started maybe a month later, going into mid June perhaps, scrapping the Euros, scrapping at least the lesser domestic cup competitions, and if needs be, going straight to knock-out rounds and scrapping the group stage in the Europa and CL.

I feel the problem is being extended into the future - and perpetuated - rather than dealt with right now.

Don't forger then at the end of the season (assuming its not delayed further by covid) we have a short break as the seasons need to start early to accommodate the winter world cup

 

[Ludens the Red]

I think you're just reiterating how pampered the top players really are.
Obviously the highest earners push up the average wage in the PL but if I say the average earner is around 50k a WEEK I don't think I'd be too far off.

I would need around 2 years to earn that sort of money so when you say it doesn't matter what size home they live in they could become super stressed I just can't feel any sympathy for them.

I spent almost 3 months stuck in a flat with just my girlfriend with the added pressure of wondering if I had a job to go back to which just so happens I don't so when I hear players who earn more in a year than I will in my whole lifetime complain about fixture congestion then I think you can understand my attitude when I say I really could not give a feck.

So true.
Most of the Pl footballers live in homes that are more or less holiday villas. Home theatres, gyms, pools, saunas, jacuzzis, gigantic gardens. Some of them even have football pitches.

I saw someone say something about them being stuck with the wife and kids all day. I don’t think that would have been the case considering how spacious their houses are.

This is a one off season, they have to knuckle down and get on with the season and shut the feck up about it because if they start complaining people are going to laugh at them and it will show how out of touch with reality they are. Nobody is going to sympathise with them.
Everyone else has suffered, either lost jobs or worked insane hours.
They all have large squads, here’s where you use it.

 

[SambaBoy]

The standard of football at times this season is going to be dire.

The sport science teams have had a hard time planning the conditioning side of things out. Most likely expect to see plenty of muscular injuries and declines within games with sprint distances and intensity well down.

 

[Lay]

The standard of football at times this season is going to be dire.

The sport science teams have had a hard time planning the conditioning side of things out. Most likely expect to see plenty of muscular injuries and declines within games with sprint distances and intensity well down.

Agreed. I think we will see some crazy score lines this season

 

[sun_tzu]

This season should have only PL and EL/UCL. Should solve the problem and almost no one would complain.

Except Ll the clubs not in the Premier league where progress on the league / fa Cup and drawing a top flight team can make.a huge difference ... and those clubs also probably started off in a financially worse position than pl clubs and have taken a bigger hit % wise probably through covid ... why take the cup competitions away from them as well

 

[DarkLord]

I think they should forget about any international competition at least until the next WC. Even that will be in jeopardy due to qualifying rounds needing to start so early for many countries.

That will be poetic justice and sweet karma for Qatar since it's an open secret that whole World Cup bid was a farce, they basically bought it over and they've planned this for over a decade starting from their acquisition of PSG. I wonder what would happen if the Olympic and World Cup are cancelled? The Olympic and FIFA to compensate Japan and Qatar?

 

[El Zoido]

Except Ll the clubs not in the Premier league where progress on the league / fa Cup and drawing a top flight team can make.a huge difference ... and those clubs also probably started off in a financially worse position than pl clubs and have taken a bigger hit % wise probably through covid ... why take the cup competitions away from them as well

Have teams play either in European competition or domestic. Anyone in the CL or EL is ineligible to play in the domestic cups. Scrap the league cup this season and have the FA Cup as normal for everyone else.

 

[sun_tzu]

Have teams play either in European competition or domestic. Anyone in the CL or EL is ineligible to play in the domestic cups. Scrap the league cup this season and have the FA Cup as normal for everyone else.

If theybtook a vote on that it would be rejected by the vast majority of clubs... which kinda disproves the idea most wouldn't complain

 

[Le Red]

Except Ll the clubs not in the Premier league where progress on the league / fa Cup and drawing a top flight team can make.a huge difference ... and those clubs also probably started off in a financially worse position than pl clubs and have taken a bigger hit % wise probably through covid ... why take the cup competitions away from them as well

Very good point. I admit I had not considered it.

 

[Judas]

It's so stupid seeing the league cup up and running. Does it really bring in that much money? It's pure greed.

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

It's going to take a strong squad to be successful. Unfortunately our depth is shit.

 

[Bastian]

We're already seeing this, with how incredibly sloppy our passing was today, no pre-season (one match) vs Palace having 3-4 pre season games under their belt, and 2 competitive games.

To cap it off, starting the league at different times is a bit of a psychological mind feck, being 6 points behind the leaders after one match.

When in the season will all the teams have played the same amount of games?

 

[TheLord]

There's no point mulling over what cannot be changed - these are unprecedented times no one could predict in advance. Teams have to adapt - improve the depth of the squad, frequently rotate players, manage injuries well, and maybe throw away the lesser cups if need be.
And because everything is unclear at the moment, the new situation provides a great opportunity for an underdog to finish in the top four, or in the Europa League places, or better still, among the top two.

 

[McGrathsipan]

The issue is people have expectations of maybe winning something and pushing up the table.
The reality is different.

The schedule is bonkers and we are not set up to cope with it with a poor squad and a one dimensional manager.

It's going to be grim watching.

 

[ariveded]

Teams aren’t performing 100% without fans, and its same for all teams. The schedule is perfectly fair, most teams have >15 international players so they have plenty of options.

 

[terraloo]

Teams aren’t performing 100% without fans, and its same for all teams. The schedule is perfectly fair, most teams have >15 international players so they have plenty of options.

This is very much the point.

Its not as if clubs only have a squad of say 15 most if not all have around 20 over the age of 21 supplemented by another half a dozen or so academy players.

This season is going to be about the managers ability to rotate and be prepared to rest players that previously were first names on team sheets.

I personally would be looking to arrive at some sort of process whereby players were , on a rolling basis, given a week or two rest every two-three months.Mechanical yes but there needs to be a plan.

Far too often clubs have players in their squads that are there not for the ride or extreme emergencies and the latter is now on us.

Clearly Palace were further advanced in fitness terms than you but last night there was something else which is easy to say was about the delay to the season starting but as a neutral , well maybe not totally neutral, it seemed as if there was something not quite right maybe it centres around misdemeanours of the likes of Greenwood and Maguire but there seemed to be something.

 

[FootballHQ]

Having 3 games in the next two international breaks is insane especially when one of those is just a friendly e.g. England playing Wales in October and New Zealand in November.

Can't understand the logic in that at all.

 

[TMDaines]

Speaking of scheduling, the PL still hasn't announced the schedule for GW4, in theory with a game on Friday 2nd October, and we are 9 days away. I know there's no in-person fans to worry about, but even so. I can't book my work shift until I know when United are on!

 

[Samid]

Speaking of scheduling, the PL still hasn't announced the schedule for GW4, in theory with a game on Friday 2nd October, and we are 9 days away. I know there's no in-person fans to worry about, but even so. I can't book my work shift until I know when United are on!

It's almost certainly going to be Sunday. Spurs will most likely be playing EL playoff on Thursday. Monday is international break.

 

[TMDaines]

That is very true, Samid. I didn't even think of that.

 

[FootballHQ]

Think we saw today the impact of teams playing through August in europe and not having a proper break after seasons ended in late July.

Lyon got to SF, 1-1 today and had a really poor start to french league. PSG lost their first two aswell although that was more due to all the covid positives and having to put out scratch 11s.

Bayern Munich and Man. City lost convincingly and Sevilla currently losing to Cadiz. Inter just about turned around the game v Fiorentina but didn't look convincing either.

Man. United already covered a fair bit.

 

[Josep Dowling]

There should have been some logic. I think all the major Europeans leagues should have cancelled their domestic cups.

How can Spurs play Sunday - Tuesday - Thursday - Sunday. That’s absolute madness.

 

[Bastian]

Belongs here:

Asked about player welfare with so many games in a short space of time, Guardiola said:

The reality is what it is. It is not just Man City, it is all the clubs and countries. Nobody cares about the players. Everyone - the Premier League, Uefa, EFL - has defended their own business and position. The players had a two-week pre-season and now they have to play every three days for 11 months. We will not change anything saying the opposite. I understand it is an exceptional situation for everyone - restaurants, theatres, cinemas, museums.
Everyone is struggling. We are not an exception. We have to believe in what we are doing and try and play a good game.

We have three players who came back from national teams injured. We cannot control that. They let them play two games in four days without preparation. They are not machines.

Between now and 31 October, City have eight league and cup games, including two in the Champions League. Some of their players are also expected to appear in international games in October.

 

[Web of Bissaka]

The teams that manage their fitness and rotate players well, shall win this season.

So a week generally will have two games with 2-3 days break in between...

A lot of creative solutions can be thought off to handle this.
1. Giving daily weekly rest to some players may not be a bad move. Bruno one week rest, then Pogba the next week.
2. Best 7 players combine with 4 fringes every game.
3. No training days for some players (the best one that play a lot) so they can concentrate on fatigue recovery.
etc etc

It's not like every single players in top team get to play. Us for instance have so many players not being used, understandably because of how unreliable they are... still.

Every team will have this problem anyway.

 

[FootballHQ]

Wolves completely out on their feet aswell. They have the biggest pass given they started their season in July last year.

 

[ArmchairCritic]

I don't understand why they are having international breaks in the middle of a global pandemic.