Off Topic Winter Break

I'm a massive fan of introducing a winter break but can accept it looks unlikely. If you look at the PL in isolation, the quality of the latter games has suffered massively due to fatigue. I watched Man U yesterday, and it was just so lethargic. The Liverpool game against Sunderland was similar. Personally I think it detracts from the quality and also hinders the smaller clubs more than most due to squad depth etc.

I was interested by this article too. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38491151

Look at that table at the bottom. The fixtures are so clustered that it is never fair across the teams. It is only getting worse. The difference in Southampton and Chelsea is ridiculous. They've been well and truly ****ed over. They've ended up losing all 3 games. It is not solely down to the rest periods of course, but it simply must have played a part.

All to accommodate TV. We've lost the plot in this country. We are letting the TV companies run our game, or at the very least leaving in the incompetent hands of the PL who just play to the TV company requirements.

If we did have a break (and of course banned clubs from playing lucrative fixtures abroad to defeat the object), I think our game would benefit, the national team would benefit and even the fans would benefit. Just because we have a tradition of playing games over this period, it doesn't mean we should continue to until the end of time. The game has changed and is played at a ferocious pace. Yes we are fitter stronger, but I don't think one has kept pace with the other.

I think I heard Shearer the other day trotting out the old line about "if you tell players they are tired they'll start to believe it". What a load of horseshit. Perhaps they are actually just fatigued Alan.

 

agree

 

Think the biggest problem is when do you actually have it - in most countries, there's a fairly set window of bad weather in which they have the winter break.

Here, we can have snow/ice and fixtures postponed anywhere from Nov to March - be fairly typical that as soon as the winter break is over, the weather turns bad and loads of games postponed - cue loads of complaints about fixture congestion later in the season.

Agree it's not a bad idea, but not sure how practical it would be to implement - plus, most clubs would see it as an excuse to piss off somewhere else and play a load of friendlies to make some cash, so no one gets any benefit

 

As I say you just ban clubs playing fixtures for money. A break means a break. Its not difficult to implement it in a way that caters for such matters. You just have to preempt the clubs trying it. They all want a winter break, I'm sure they will agree to such a stipulation.

We are not really any different to other European countries in that bad weather can hit at any time. We just need to mirror the other leagues. I don't hear them moaning about playing more fixtures towards the back end. Physical and mental fatigue would be massively helped. They'd recharge and go again. We're still massively fatigued come the back end, so having a break in between will likely make a few extra fixtures late on seem like small fry.

Honestly I think these are just excuses fed to us by the PL big wigs as they line their pockets. We are not some unique case, we are the same as the other leagues. They just have people running the game for the game, rather than money. Money is a consideration for those leagues too, they've just never let money become more important than football. Their FA is still running the game is the difference.

Look at all the leagues achieving it.

http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/ecr/datesleague.htm

I'd love to know how we are a special case. What the attached shows me is we are a bunch of greedy morons. We don't need to be like the Bundesliga necessarily with a month off. Spain, Portugal etc only take 2 weeks. Its definitely achievable and they need to take advantage of the situation come 2019 when they TV deal ends. I'd imagine they have us tied up in knots until then.

 

It's the same for everyone. Don't see much need for it myself.

 

I think the webpage in the OP shows it is far from the same for everyone. I'm not suggesting there is a conspiracy to help Chelsea or **** over Southampton, but it has happened. Damages the integrity of the competition.

It also massively impacts on the quality and results in a lot of injuries due to fatigue.

There is a reason 95% of the continent have one. I don't think they are just lazy or soft

 

Well except maybe the Spanish are lazy and the French are soft, we can't let that bit of casual stereotyping die out.

 

I have to admit I have skim read that article but is that not more of a scheduling issue rather than proof that a winter break is needed?

 

Undoubtedly. That was more of a side issue to be honest. They are linked of course in that the TV companies/PL are the major obstacle to the winter break (the FA have been discussing this with them for some time but its written into the TV deal obviously). their desire to control the fixtures over the winter period results in the skewed recovery periods.

I just think there would be less complaints if everyone had a break. I'm not really sure why we refuse to catch up with the rest of Europe. Its pretty obvious from a scientific angle, that a break would benefit everybody involved (bar the fans) physically and mentally.

I just watch the games also though, and it becomes a bit of a poor advert for the league. Liverpool and Man U were a shadow of their best. They have really deep squads so not sure how the rest will cope. Then we roll straight into the cup games. Injuries inevitably stack up, players piss off to the ACON. It all just seems to play into the hands of the few while the quality plummets. I can't see the sense in it. I must admit I don't see any benefit to me personally as a fan. If anything I miss more games I might want to watch as you have other priorities in terms of family over the period.

 

Think this is the thing for me - just reschedule one of the games over the Xmas/New Year period and you're pretty much back to normal

 

Look at Spain/Portugal, they just shut down between the 22/12 to about the 7/1/2016. Job done. In that time we cram in 3 games Then we can't work out why the games are crap and everyone seems to gets injuries. We're a bunch of ****ing idiots. The rest of Europe just looks at us like we're mad, but we just get the blinkers and press forward.

 

There is no guarantee that it makes any difference at all.

If there was a break would players still train. Would the fitness levels actually suffer?

Would they see it as an opportunity to abuse their bodies and thus lower fitness levels?

Would it hit a teams momentum?

The fixtures have to be played at some point in the year. Thus would we have to reduce each leagues size by 2 teams? Thus meaning 8 teams drop out of the football league altogether.

Where do you think most money is made from advertisements, as in what time of year? Christmas time maybe.....The financial impact would potentially massive to all teams.

The statistics suggesting that some teams get favourable fixture schedules at this time of year are skewed by the fact that it only seems to be an issue to the teams who do worse in the period..... maybe!

If we dont reduce the size of each league to accommodate the break when do the remaining fixtures get played? Summertime- when it's hot! Maybe that would also result in fatigue. Longer season etc.

There are arguments for and against it but me for one suggest that having the break is not as beneficial as you might think.

 

See I don't understand this at all. Why would we have to reduce the numbers? Spain and France both have 20 teams and manage it? Yes if you go for a Bundesliga type month long break you'd have to probably drop to 18 teams. But otherwise it makes no sense. The very fact there are leagues operating with the same number of teams with similar timeframes renders the whole scheduling argument null and void. It clearly can be achieved.

I couldn't give a **** about the money. I'd rather quality of football was better, and our national team benefitted. The amount of money swilling around in our leagues is massive. If we have to take a small financial hit so what. Someone will always pay the money though is the reality. The bar is set. The TV companies are not going to drop hundreds of millions off the valuation for 3 Xmas games. It should be about the football not the money. Its this kind of thinking which is everything which is wrong about our game. Is that you Rupert?

Teams momentum? I think it would be the same for all teams. Much like an international break.

Statistics for favourable fixtures is just plain obvious to me. If one team is getting 117 hours to play 3 games, and another is getting 226 hours to play those same 3 fixtures, the latter team has a huge advantage. The recovery time in professional sports is a massive factor in performance. To suggest otherwise is a bit bewildering to me?

Abuse of bodies? They are professional athletes. I think this would not be the case. They still train but do conditioning work to help get their body back to peak performance. Thus the quality is maintained and less injuries are likely to be suffered. There is no guarantee but fatigue in sports makes you more susceptible to injury. There is enough data out there to prove this.

 

Agree

 

It's the scheduling of FIFA to me. The Intl breaks are at some goddam ridiculous times. I think we play 3 games before we get 2 weeks off, then another one some month later. And FIFA want MORE games with WORSE teams. The right option is to tier the competition, like the main cups per continent. So have pre-qualifiers in like the CONCACAF and NINKYNONK regions of FIFA have, where the likes of San Marino and Luxembourg can all play off against the likes of Wales and Scotland, before then eventually England, Germany, Spain, etc., jump in at latter parts of qualifiers ahead of a tournament. So shocks can happen, but we don't have the mundane bullcrap of guaranteed wins. Essentially top countries should really only play around half the number of matches they do. That will spread the load and ease the Xmas pressure.

That said, the TV companies burden has got out of hand. Back again to FA being pointless/spineless. The PL dictates what happens, they're dictated to by money and TV schedules because that, in effect, is all they can sell.

 

Personally I blame Pardew.

 

I definitely think that needs changed also. Nothing is achieved by it.

 

Fail to see the argument for a winter break. As has been said the PL is the same size as most European leagues. Therefore we play the same number of games, We all start at game 1 and finish with game 38. We don't have a break and most/all European leagues do.

Also read

http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/916-Organisation-&-structure/10123-pause-and-effect?-structure=

Interesting article which has a number of points I agree with. For example, if the games aren't played during Christmas period they must be played at some other time during the season. We may be busier over Christmas but that means we are not so busy at other times during the season both in comparison to European teams. The games have to be played at some stage, If the season was longer because of the break then we would have some bleeding hearts complaining about the length of the season.

For the top teams we then have the "break" friendly games in far fetched countries to make money for the Clubs. Can't really see the top Clubs agreeing not to have these friendlies given the opportunity to advertise the brand and to make money.

For me a big factor is the ridiculous break for each international game which was introduced to help the England team compete at the top level (no, I haven't noticed the difference either) and the increased number of internationals most of which are non competitive and of little interest to a huge number of fans. Get rid of the number of pointless internationals and for the PL "tiredness" should be a thing of the past.

Also agree with Shearer on players being tired. How many of Sunderland's players were tired in the run up to the League Cup final they reached a year or so back in contrast to how so many were injured/tired last season? Let's not forget that these players are young men supposedly at their peak health wise being looked after better than any player previously playing less games than in years gone by, eg Liverpool in the late 1970's.

Agree TV and re-scheduling of games doesn't help but it's perhaps time Clubs and the PL should find a backbone with a view to saving the game from over exposure which in turn would level the playing field for all Clubs in the PL but again this won't happen due to greed and the likes of Man Utd not wanting to give up the money for being a live game and just having the same number of live games as Hull City.

 

Burn a witch

 

Stop changing your ****ing user names ya pack of basas.