Tottenham Hotspur have endured one of the worst injury crises in recent memory this season and Ange Postecoglou believes something has to change in the Premier League.
The Premier League is widely considered to be the best football league in the world – but at what cost?
England is the only country in which three domestic competitions are still played – The Premier League, the FA Cup, and the League Cup. Not only that, but Premier League clubs are not handed a long winter break seen in other leagues, while there are no rest weekends before European fixtures.
Postecoglou believes that all of this leads to three possible roads. Either a significant change needs to be made to the schedule, clubs will have to accept the need for 40-player squads, or long-term injuries will simply become a permanent part of the game.
Ange Postecoglou says something has to change in England
The Tottenham head coach also spoke about other ways that the players can be protected going forward, admitting that the club might have to put a cap on how many games each player gets through the season.
He pointed to the increasingly crowded nature of the global footballing calendar as the main reason why players’ bodies are not getting sufficient recovery time.
When asked if there could be on cap on minutes that players play through the season, Postecoglou responded (via Football.London): “I definitely think players need a certain amount of time for their bodies to recover at the end of the year. Most players these days, it’s not like they just go and sit on the beach, most of them are pretty smart and look after themselves.
MORE SPURS STORIES
“Having a minimum set number of days where they have zero contact with football is important. Then it’s the amount of games and I might have mentioned it in the interview I did, this is the only league where you have got this amount of teams, three cup competitions, no winter break and no sort of rest weekends before European fixtures.
“It’s the only league that does it. Either we’re smarter than everyone else or maybe there’s something in what others are doing. There has to be a time where everyone sits together and I know it’s going to hit revenues and the players are part of that because they are beneficiaries of those revenues.
“But we will get to a point to where we get rid of squad limits and clubs have 40-plus players on their books to cope with it or you are going to get what we have at the moment. You watch the Arsenal game last night and players getting injured, going down getting injured. It’s going to become more prevalent I think.
“Invariably it’s hitting clubs in European competition more or clubs who have had extended cup runs or who have a lot of international players. Yeah, I think it’s not like it’s decreasing because we’ve had two extra European games this year and in fact, it’s going the other way.
“The demands of international football, of continental football, are increasing so at some point something has to give if we want the product to remain and we want to look after the most important participants which are the players.”
Ange Postecoglou
(Credit: @paulnealon90 / Instagram)
Postecoglou confirms Tottenham will take Chelsea on
The West London side have struggled to break down teams who sit back of late, but unsurprisingly, Postecoglou has no plans of going to Stamford Bridge and defending with men behind the ball.
The Tottenham head coach confirmed that his side will look to take the game to Enzo Maresca’s men and see how they fare.
When asked if Tottenham would consider sitting back and making it difficult for Chelsea, Ange Postecoglou responded: “Er… No, mate. Sorry to disappoint. We’ll go there and have a crack and see if it’ll be a good game and hopefully, we’ll come out on top.
“I think every club is on its own journey and I was brought here for a couple of specific reasons. One was to change the way the club plays its football, rejuvenate the squad and bring some success. We’re well and truly on that road and we’ll stay on that road until those things happen.”
Related Posts
Have something to tell us about this article? Let us know