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Premiership Football News: Take a break?

Andy Greeves

The introduction of a winter break is one of English football's season-old arguments. The Premier League has continued to buck the trend of major leagues around Europe, including France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Germany and Portugal, all of whom take a break from playing for a minimum of 15 days around December/January time. In contrast, Christmas and New Year brings one of the busiest periods of the year for footballers in England. Every Premier League team will play a minimum of four league games and a cup match between 15th December and 2nd January - five fixtures in just eighteen days.

A fixture break over the festive season and/or the New Year is well supported within English football. Managers and players including Sir Alex Ferguson, Nicholas Anelka, Mark Hughes and Sam Allardyce are those to publically call for a break over the last few years. Sir Alex's proposal would be for the domestic season to be extended, using the whole of May and then taking a three week break in January. Mark Hughes supports that idea and believes, "English teams are at a disadvantage when it comes to the business end of the season and trophies are up for grabs," as a result of not having a winter break.

For the first time this year, evidence has come to light supporting the likes of Ferguson and Hughes' in their opinion that not having a winter break adversely affects the performance of players. Pro-Zone, an industry-leading football analyst and work directly with most Premier League clubs, published a report back in February, called 'An objective insight into whether English football should introduce a winter break'. The results of the study, based on analysis of players from all top flight clubs, revealed that there was a "sizeable drop in performance in December" - a 20% cent fall on the season average in 'high intensity work' (sprinting and high-speed running) and a 41% decrease on the season peak in distance covered that month.

The report also suggested players are most susceptible to injury as a consequence of fatigue and heavy workload - which is at its greatest over the festival period. Top physiotherapists working in the Premier League agree that the Christmas calendar can be detrimental to the well-being of their players. Arsenal's chief physiotherapist, Gary Lewin, is one such individual to call for a winter break, believing a period of rest and recuperation it is needed for players to perform at their optimum level.

While there might be a growing desire amongst the players and staff of the Premier League to go continental and have a winter break, clubs and supporters aren't nearly so sure. Boxing Day and New Year's Day matches have been a festival tradition for decades. Much like the FA Cup third round weekend and the opening day of the league season, Boxing Day and New Year's fixtures in England are part of the country's unique football culture.

Boxing Day and New Year's games, particularly at lower league level, tend to be amongst the best attended during the season. They are a rare occasion for all the family to go to football and are embraced as such by the community. The money generated over December and January gives clubs a bright start to the New Year and one can say with relative certainty, the same revenue would not be produced with matches later in May.

Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson represents the views of the majority view of football clubs and supporters, believing the festive football matches should be here to stay. He's ridiculed the managers that complain about 'fixture pile-up' and the players that complain of fatigue commenting last winter:

"Any player complaining should come and do a 14-hour day in industrial Teesside. We're not asking them to go to Afghanistan or Iraq, we're asking them to play football."

The return of local derbies on Boxing Day/New Years might be a welcome change to the fixture list around Christmas, at least ensuring players and fans are not expected to travel long distances over the holiday period. Derby fixtures on Boxing Day/New Years were common place once upon a time, but were taken off the English football agenda back in the 1980's, due to the rise in hooliganism and disorder at these matches. With hooliganism a relative thing of the past in the UK now, the re-establishment of derbies could be a popular compromise in tackling the problem of player fatigue during an intense spell of games.

As far as the bigger picture - having a winter break - a change seems to be unlikely, certainly for the foreseeable future. As Sir Alex Ferguson fumed a few winters ago, "Managers have always voiced their opinions in favour of a winter break... I championed it when I first came to United in 1986. There's still nothing being done about it. It's ridiculous."

While Fergie, English football's managers and players dream of one day taking a break from playing during the cold winter, the appetite for the game to go on over Christmas and the New Year amongst the public continues. As does the desire for there to be continuity in the fixture programme. The traditional Boxing Day and New Year's Day games look set to run and run for that reason so the players better get used to it.

Andy Greeves

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