So many childish and straight up bad takes here (capitalism fault, environment, bla bla) What it boils down to is what average stress load can a footballer physically take and the lack of transparency what is expected in terms of a football club.
If they recognise, on average, that the amount of games exceeds the possibility for the average player, then a) they make it clear that clubs should structure around creating more squad depth to enable rotation and look at transfer policy in a more well-rounded squad than paying stupid money for the ideal 11. Or b) cut on games and competitions that aren’t necessary (league cup). The base problem is that clubs are over-paying on transfer and player salaries, which incentivises the need for more matches.
Clubs just need to get it out of their heads that they have to succumb to stupid transfer fees.
How is “capitalism’s fault” a childish excuse, it’s a genuine reason why there’s too many games, so the Premier League, UEFA, FIFA etc. can be greedy and make more money
That’s what capitalism is
A socialist system would also extort as many games as possible out of the players. If anything capitalist systems have proven to be far more responsive to overtaxing resources, whereas historically socialist systems are hesitant to reduce production of a good or service.
I don’t think a socialist system is the best solution either
A more moderate, less greedy capitalist system would be good, like making teams in Europe unable to participate in the League cup, and maybe reducing the teams in the Prem and have less games in pre season
I mean the amount Injuries players are getting not just at United but other teams as well. Surely there is enough evidence out there footballers play too much.
But this is what capitalism does to a product, its squeezing as much money as they can out of product while the quality collapses.
its squeezing as much money as they can out of product while the quality collapses.
Not really, there are better ways to make money from football than more games. Just look at american football. They play 17 games once a week. And its the most commercialised sport in the world.
There are ways to make stupid amounts of money without running the players into the ground.
But either way fans get fucked. Either through paying more for TV for more games or through a worse experience with mid game ads
Going to get even worse with the expanded champions league and club World Cup too. All the PL teams in Europe, plus Chelsea and Tottenham are already so injury hit and we’ve not even got to the busy part of the season
They should just rotate more. It’s in their interest to avoid overworking the players too
Eh only the best of best are playing too much. And they get compensated more, waaayyyy more than enough for that.
Other than reducing teams in the top flight from 20 to 18 (like in Germany and France) what else can be done? You can’t reduce the amount of CL games, cups are single leg only until later stages.
Clearly adding more games is incredibly stupid, but I don’t see how you can reduce them.
I am all for 18 teams.
Btw, in Germany all cup games are single-leg. And there is only one national cup, like God intended. So there is still further room to reduce games in England, apart from the size of the league.
Just kick Chelsea and City out and it’s sorted.
Agreed. It’s already started to cross the limit of what a referee can handle. That bunda referee tore his ACL yesterday.
Bunda lmao x
That’s why the big clubs invest in good substitute players as they need to be rotated. I may get it wrong, but it seems like he is trying to make excuses by blaming the schedule instead of his coaching skill.
I know r/soccer hates Newcastle but what’s happening to them at the moment is a poster for what’s wrong here (so are Brighton, and others, and indeed most clubs have big injury lists).
Club gets to the champions league spot for the 1st time in ages, spends basically the max allowed by FFP to try to increase the squad to cope but it’s nowhere near enough. Yesterday 10+ out after getting several back post international break. Their 25 man squad left the line up as including a 17 year old in the first 11, 3 goalkeepers on the bench, 4 kids with basically 0 prem mins and 2 semi-retired lads whose ages probably sum to 112.
If we’re not to change to less games, do away with injury time (by punishing harshly any time wasting perhaps?). Or could some forced rotation work - eg in baseball they often play 5 days in a row but have different pitchers each day. Could limit the number of starters who are allowed to play a mid-week game after playing 70+mins at the weekend.
Prem should make squad caps larger at the least if the schedule must be like this
I agree with him 100%. It’s why most of the big clubs have bigger squads and players with some good versatility, so help cover multiple positions and allow others to rest. It’s hard on the smaller teams and those with less back up options in their squads. Brighton especially seem to be decimated with injuries whilst also having to factor in a European schedule.
Europa has always been difficult for teams to handle. You often saw teams qualify and then next season be battling relegation. This isn’t a new phenomenon.
We had 4 different competitions AND a winter World Cup AND a messed up schedule due to the queen’s death last season, it was fucking absurd watching us playing every 3 days
That’s why I’m so grateful for Darmian. Without him we’d have been in the mud last year and even this year with Pavard going down and also Dumfries having no backup
As an Arsenal fan, I’m really grateful we have Trossard and Tomiyasu. Both can cover multiple positions and both are really talented footballers.
Yeah, if this keeps up it’s gonna become really important to have a versatile squad and bench. Having players who can only play one position is gonna be a luxury
Pep was way ahead of the curve on this one.
Didn’t help Wenger that much tbh, we were always crippled by injuries come Feb
The bigger clubs usually had more matches. But with addition of conference league, the smaller clubs are beginning to feel the same pain
So why NBA players can do Back to Backs? 👀
(i am not even american)
Increasing squad size is the way. The governing bodies love money too much to play less games so having more players could go some way to alleviating the stress on players’ bodies.
Increase squad size and limit how many games a player can play in a year.
Of course the “obvious” solution is to reduce games played but that will put a dent in the organizer’s pocket so it’s never happening.
Imagine City with an even bigger squad
What do you think of mandating a minimum number of minutes for academy players/season, to take pressure off big players. Something like 2000-3000 minutes (i.e 20-30 games worth, to be split between as many academy players as need be). Also incentivizes clubs bring youth through
Interesting idea but how would you account for academies that don’t have players at a decent level enough for top tier football, prevent burnout of that one top prospect etc?
Also for clubs that get promoted, they are already facing an uphill battle to avoid relegation.
If they are forced to play youth too, that will make things all the more harder since the bigger clubs will just sign the promising players.
The number of games issue is primarily for clubs in the CL, EL, ECL.
The environment, too. The planet is collapsing, but because it isn’t a televised sport, we don’t see it. Puts people being off being happy and buying things, if we saw what is happening and how rapidly it’s getting worse.
We can’t keep acting as though all that matters is more entertainment in our lives.
The entertainment being provided so we will buy lifestyles is not sustainable. We all know it.
How is this related to this post at all lmfao.
they are just saying the amount of plane rides teams do is bad for the planet too, is that really difficult to understand lol
If it was only teams it would be okay. But for big clubs you have thousands of travelling fans as well
Football players have crossed the limits of what they can handle. We can see that because we watch them play.
The planet has also crossed the limits of what it can handle, but most people are trying to ignore it, and keep eating meat when they like, flying when they like, and consuming as much as they like.
Climate change pollution keeps rising, every year, despite all the green energy infrastructure that’s been built. People don’t see the collapse of our survivable environment, like they see footballers collapsing because they’ve been overplayed.
Like with Qatar and the Saudis taking over the World Cup, the next COP talks on how to deal with climate change have been taken over by the USE so that they can make sure we aren’t doing what we need to do and deal with their business model.
Thought I’d remind everyone that a more important situation is also passing what it can handle. If we don’t reduce consumption seriously, now, all the scientists are saying we face disaster.
If we don’t stop being ‘entertained’ by the expansion of consumption created by the money spent by oil states, we will be living on a planet that we can’t survive on.
Hope that’s explained it to you.
As a football fan, I’m really confused why I’m hearing so much talk about how the schedule is more congested than ever and players are at a breaking point. Since I started watching football 15 years ago, the schedule has been the same as it’s always been for the players in the Top 5 leagues, same cups, same UCL format with 4 international breaks every season and I major tournament every 2 years. Yet the for the last couple of years I’ve been hearing many coaches, players and fans going on about how their age too many games nowadays when the schedule is the same as it was 15 years ago. Also the new UCL and CWC format come into effect yet so I’m even more confused. And it’s usually big 6 coaches, fans and players that complain about the schedule like someone like they have the chance to rest their players and use the bench or academy players in cup games. Arteta doesn’t have to play Saka in the FA CUP and league cup if he genuinely cares about his fitness levels. Can somebody explain what I’m missing because I am very confused?