After Kevin De Bruyne publicly lambasted the Nations League as ‘unimportant’, it is clear to see that the relentlessness of the footballing calendar is having an impact from both a physical and mental standpoint on top players.
However, the schedule is expected to be even more intense in the 2022/23 season, mainly due to the Qatar World Cup being held in between the upcoming campaign.
With the final league fixtures set to played on November 12th and 13th, an eight-day turnaround will follow before the grandest stage of football kicks off on November 21rd.
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Due to the excessively demanding nature of the footballing schedule next term, it has been revealed that measures are being taken to lighten the load on players that are plying their trades in the most competitive league in world football.
As per a report by James Olley of ESPN, the English Football Association (FA) is understood to have submitted a formal request to the Premier League asking for games between the ‘Big Six’ not to be scheduled on the weekend before the World Cup begins.
While fixtures have been generated at random through a system developed by a software company called Atos since the first edition of the league in 1992, there are certain ‘golden rules’ that can be introduced in special circumstances.
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For instance, no team in the division can be permitted to play more than two home or away games consecutively.
Similarly, it is stated that the FA are said to believe that a one-off golden rule should be put in place by the Premier League as a winter World Cup has led to an unprecedented fixture pile-up for the players and clubs to deal with.
Ultimately, Manchester City have international players in abundance, which means that playing against one of the 'Big Six' sides in a high-octane affair just a week before the start of the tournament in Doha could lead to a whole host of fatigue and injury problems.
Topics: Manchester City, Liverpool, Premier League
Srinivas Sadhanand