"
A crime
".
This is how Jürgen Klopp qualified the matches every two days scheduled for the time of the sacrosanct Boxing Day in England in 2019. And the bell has hardly changed for the influential coach of Liverpool, whose word is regularly taken and dissected across the Channel.
“
Playing on the 26th and then on the 28th is not good, I repeat because I think it's true, we can find solutions
,” the German technician rephrased at the start of the week.
It's not that hard to play football in a slightly different way.
The 26th and 29th would be preferable, where is the problem?
"
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Knowing that he did not play on Sunday against Leeds, the former Dortmund coach also and above all turns into a spokesperson for a Premier League at the end of his rope.
Or at least its main protagonists.
"
I am worried about the health of the players and I think that nobody takes this subject seriously enough, all the more in this period, where the Covid rode
", thus summarized its captain Jordan Henderson, always in point on the defense of his peers, at the microphone of the BBC
.
Guardiola strike call
Since Boxing Day was upheld against all odds (193 positive Covid-19 tests identified in the championship over the past two weeks), similar declarations have multiplied. "
It's a ridiculous schedule and everyone knows it
"
,
planted Brendan Rodgers after the defeat of his Leicester to Manchester City (6-3). Almost a false problem to listen to the manager of the Foxes, who trapped Liverpool on Tuesday (1-0): “
The players are not fully recovered before 72 hours after a match.
"
And this even if the situation is different for Boxing Day 2021, where seven matches have already been postponed.
Covid or not, the problem lies elsewhere, support the players in the English championship.
Organizations are too busy.
“
The situation shouldn't be this.
We should be able to discuss it every year, ”
says Klopp, repeating that such a frantic pace is“
absolutely not normal
”.
Business is more important than the well-being of players to FIFA, the Premier League and their broadcasters
Pep guardiola
His counterpart Pep Guardiola, at the head of the best team in the kingdom, wanted to be resolutely more radical. In the general interest: “
Maybe the players and coaches should unite to strike.
“The Catalan believes that only a movement of magnitude would allow a real awareness of the health of the players. "
Words won't be enough,"
said the City technician.
Business is more important than the well-being of players to FIFA, the Premier League and their broadcasters. ”
The latter are moreover all the more demanding in periods such as Boxing Day, as illustrated by Vincent Chaudel, co-founder of the Observatoire du sport business: "
Amazon bought one of the Boxing Day mining bundles so that wouldn't be good news for them.
The championship takes advantage of this inter-festive period to increase the number of matches and satisfy the broadcaster.
International rights holders can also be cheated, it is the domino effect of this kind of decisions or situations
. "
Read alsoPremier League: Boxing Day at all costs
The return of the five changes on the table
The equation then seems insoluble with so many stakeholders.
Especially since Boxing Day remains an immutable tradition across the Channel.
So the coaches compete in ingenuity to spare their flock.
"
The simplest example is maintaining the five changes all over the world while here we are back to three
", notes Guardiola.
His colleague from Chelsea, Thomas Tuchel, followed him on this point: “
I am a fervent supporter of the five changes.
They were invented during the pandemic and I think we should put them back if we want to keep playing. ”
Thomas Tuchel regularly calls for the return of the five changes to the Premier League.
DAVID KLEIN / REUTERS
Only, this stopgap solution has been ... refused three times already, the small clubs arguing that the return to the five changes would favor even more the members of the Big Six and their workforce much more bloated.
The majority of 14 clubs out of 20 was required during the polls to validate this measure, which is still in force elsewhere than in the Kingdom.
The League Cup at the center of the debates
Finally, another solution to the hellish pace was mentioned: the elimination of the League Cup, aka Carabao Cup. The only major league to retain a second national cup since the withdrawal of the Coupe de la Ligue in France in 2020, the Premier League also presents a format with round-trip semi-final matches. Six matches in 17 days await Chelsea, including a double confrontation against rival Tottenham in the Carabao Cup and choppy matches against Liverpool and City in the league.
"
A break would have been better for us
", revealed Tuchel before the quarter of the League Cup won in Brentford (2-0) with a team made up of several U23s, an "
unnatural
"
solution
he assumed.
But maintaining the League Cup involves other issues, as the refractory Ralf Rangnick, a newcomer to the Manchester United bench, reminded us: "
The League Cup is always kept for the third and fourth teams. divisions, in particular to improve the financial situation of these clubs.
But I still think that, if we are talking about a tight schedule, we are playing too many games and we have to discuss it.
"
