As it is well publicised foreign leagues have winter breaks.... i was just wondering the general concensus of people here. Do you support them or are you against them? I for one are against them, they are disruptive and the Boxing day games are a joy, i can remember getting tickets on christmas day to go to Man City away (although i wish i hadn't ) but for me the games are too good to throw away. There is a poll just curious to see how many say yes.. how many no.
NO WINTER BREAKS. THEY ARE FOR WHIMPS. If there were breaks what would the clubs do ? Fly off to warmer places for lucrative exhibition games. Keep it as it is. IMO.
I would support a 2 week break in January. I also love Boxing Day and New Years Day games. Personally, I'd move Round 3 of the FA Cup to New Year's Day because it's probably the best day in the entire fixture calendar (unless you draw Wigan) and then break off after that. I fear that a break would be the end of the League Cup, which would be a shame. Oh, and one other thing, I'd ban clubs from playing friendly games during that break.(Notice that French Tickler's made the same point, good thinking).
But if you introduce the break and ban friendlies then when the players come back to play the league then they will be slow and sluggish. Training is not the same as a propper match expirience therefore results could suffer
Only if the break doesn't coincide with our national holidays as these are times when a lot of folk want to go to games.
Training can still take place. You dont lose much in 2 weeks. But this should never be an issue as already posted. If the winter is that bad and games are called off then they get a break anyway. The clubs pushing for the breaks simply want to Jet off elsewhere and make more money. Keep it as it is. imo.
The last two seasons have been an absolute farse with practically half the games over the Christmas period being cancelled. This obviously strengthens the case for a Winter break, but the real debate is when to have it should one come into force? Last Winter we had atrocious weather for the best part of a month; enforcing a break early January would have had no effect on the postponed games whatsoever. In fact it would have piled up the fixture list even more - the situation would then have become untenable for clubs lower down the leagues, some of whom were playing 3 games a week for most of the latter months already. Getting shut of the League Cup is a practical solution to avoid fixture pile ups, but obviously sponsorship deals would prevent that from happening. Another is scrapping FA Cup replays, but this would cause fans and 'traditionalists' in the game to be disgruntled - so just what do you do? Most European leagues have some form of break during the Winter months. No Premier League player at the World Cup in South Africa performed to what was expected of them. Can anybody suggest a reason for this?
What's that got to do with anything? The foreign lads that play in England played fine at the World Cup, with the exception of France and Italy. They'd still whinge about the fixtures being bunched together anyway. England played ****e at the WC because they're past caring about us as a nation and only play for their pay cheques.
They're past caring? Oh dear, it really is worse than we all thought. When I said Premier League players, I was mainly reffering to the English lads, but the point is not one player who played in the Premier League had a great World Cup. If you were to name the top 20 players from South Africa, I bet not one would have played in the Premier League that season. And yet we're meant to have the best league in the world... My argument was that because we don't have a break in Winter, players suffer from niggling injuries late in the season and therefore aren't fully fit for a major tournament. Players who played in Spain and Germany seemed to manage well - not a coincidence I don't think
The Premier League tends to be more physical and demanding than other European leagues. The top Spanish and Italian sides can expect a fair few easy games across the course of the season, where certainly less effort will be exerted. However, in the Premier League, the games against the lower teams tend to be some of the most physical games that a player will take part in, giving no break in the intensity of games. As I say, we pretty much already have a winter break with the FA Cup 3rd round. It is very rare to see a top player in the 3rd round, so they get their two week break. I agree that it isn't a coincidence that players from the Spanish and German leagues seemed to perform better in the World Cup. However, I think that is more to do with the very essence of the leagues, something that a winter break would not solve.
It doesn't matter as they'll play the same number of games, over the same number of months, but the only difference is they'll have to start earlier to fit in this new bollocks ruling. In the past they played to the same schedule and you could have as many replays in the fa cup as needed and still England seemed to perform better, on the international stage, than this current crop of horse ****e are doing. Please don't tell me you're blaming our crap performances at the WC on us not having a winter break. Spain & Germany are just better than us. We were crap for a whole host of reasons and that isn't an important one.
LOL. There is no reason why the League Cup cannot be completed before Xmas. Why drap semi-finals and final into the 2nd half of the season. Thats for the FA Cup. Replays must stay for sure. But only as it is now. The winter break is a daft idea and only muted by greedy clubs. When the snow comes we all get a winter break.
Far from it - my point was about Premier League players not performing at The WC. England's poor performance comes down to alot of things, the physical demands of a PL season being one of them. The mess that the FA is in being another - I see Baldini agreed a deal to join Roma before Euro 2012 today, ****ing selfish idiot
