We've seen a lot of complaints about the Premier League fixture pile up over the Christmas period just gone. When you look at the stats, it's not too hard to see why. There was Premier League football for seven straight days from St.Stephen's this year.
It annoyed quite a few of the managers. Sam Allardyce claimed the fixture organisers should be sacked, Jurgen Klopp was blunt in his assessment of the situation, claiming that TV channels decide when teams play nowadays. Both Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger have come out criticising the schedule as well.
But if they thought this year was bad, 2017/18 season is even worse for congestion at Christmas.
You'd think with a major World Cup coming up in 2018 that the FA would give English clubs a bit of a rest to recharge their batteries over the festive period.
You would think that. And you couldn't be even further from the truth.
If you think this PL holiday fixture list is mad, here's next year: December 16/20/23/26/30 January 1. World Cup follows. Utterly Bonkers.
— Gary Lineker 💙💛 (@GaryLineker) January 2, 2017
That's a sixth of the season being played in 16 days.
But they get paid to play football, they should be able for this?! Yes, they do get paid to play football, but at a very high level. Premier League footballers run on average close to seven miles per game.
Is it any wonder that the managers are furious? No team can compete to the best of their ability three times in the space of 10 days. We saw Klopp's Liverpool slump at Sunderland having only played two days earlier against Man City. That'll probably happen next season if the FA have their way.
