People here are all for agreeing about too many matches etc. but the next time a smaller team attempts to play defensively and “boring” against a bigger side it will all be calls for stop clocks and defending having 15 minutes added on at the end of games because “The ball was only in play X amount of minutes!”
The complete hypocritical attitudes that appeare from the same people depending on the thread title and what the sentiment is within the comment section when they arrive is very tiring.
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
Did you see its bench yesterday? It has one of the smallest squads in the league.
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
impossible, it will just ruin the market and quality of the league.
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.
Could just mandate it for teams playing in 4 competitions, or require them to play 2000 minutes and everyone else to play 1000
Didnt need to just play the squad player. Wtf ten hag
Increasing squad size and limiting games per player is massively favouring financially wealthy clubs and clubs that are struggling will get absolutely shafted by this.
That would be even worse than continuing with the current way.
reduce games played but that will put a dent in the organizer’s pocket so it’s never happening.
People always ignore that the players won’t accept dropping their wages either. It’s just
Big leagues increasing squad size will make the smaller leagues a lot shitter :(
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.
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
Mostly because refs back then were totally cool with allowing teams to just kick them off the park
I remember pundits completely losing it back then lol
“It’s disrespectful!” :D
Managers occasionally used to complain about CL clubs resting players and fielding weakened sides against their opposition.
The same managers then started resting their best players against Mourinho’s Chelsea to preserve their strength for matches they had a chance of winning, and everyone just kind of accepted that rotation is what we do now.
Claudio Ranieri was first manager I remember who really started rotating players in the Premiership. The British press nicknamed him the tinkerman because of it
Emma Hayes has been building her Chelsea Women squad in this mould for years too. So many versatile players. Genuinely at least half of the squad can play at least three different positions.
Erin Cuthbert is her dream. Has played wing back on both flanks, defensive midfield, box-to-box, attacking midfield, both wings.
A lot is made of CFCW’s depth in terms of numbers, but it’s the versatility that is key - and Hayes has built it that way.
The bigger clubs usually had more matches. But with addition of conference league, the smaller clubs are beginning to feel the same pain
Oh yeah thats a good point. Here in the eredivisie, with recent coefficient points we have and the conference league, 8th place will already play europa games. Thats the half of the league where it used to be (on the top of my head) first champipns league play offs and second europa league play offs
There’s always been 7-8 slots in Europe, and smaller clubs have always struggled with it. Stoke, Swansea, West Ham basically threw a qualifier one year to avoid it.
It really hurts smaller teams.
We have so many out injured and we just dont have any depth to cover it up. We had 3 players on the bench yesterday that arent supposed to be close to the first team yet.
Chelsea have enough players to rotate for another 2 more competitions. Best club ITW /s
Im surprised the most upvoted comments wasn’t a “Erik ten excuses” joke.
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.
Kai plays LB too
Timber was supposed to be that as well :(
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
This year should have been postponed like three weeks or so.
The thing is that the top teams in most leagues are rather stable and can plan on playing international football (and reaping the corresponding revenue and prize money) every season, so that they can afford to build large squads geared toward playing in 3/4 competitions. On the #6 or #7 spots, there is typically far higher volatility from year to year, so these clubs neither have the large squad, nor can they build one based on a one-off participation in international competition.
Newcastle had 10 squad members (and Elliot Anderson who’s u21 but a key squad member) out against Chelsea, we’ve got 2 games a week till Xmas.
Even with a decent 25 man squad we’re at bare bones, we named 4 keepers and mostly kids on our bench, and started a 17y/o…
There’s tough schedules and there’s ridiculous schedules. Next year’s changes to the champions league will add another burden for most clubs competing in that.
And then the double side of that is if you lose European football you can’t afford to expand your squad to much or have tonnes of players in a non Euro season who just won’t get enough football, so aside from teams who can stay in the top 3 regularly to build a massive squad, it just becomes a massive gamble on injuries.
So why NBA players can do Back to Backs? 👀
(i am not even american)
Because they’re different sports. During the Stanley Cup playoffs, you play every other day, even if the last game had 3-4-5 overtimes. MLB regularly does doubleheaders and any regular season game could go on until there’s a winner. Mention a 20 game regular season to NFL players (or try to increase to workload of pitchers) and you’re a dead man.
Go look up how much the average distance an NBA player runs in a single game. Then look up how much the average distance an football player runs in a single game.
Soccer players run up to 3x the distance, do full sprints way more often, and have the added difficulty of dribbling/turning.
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.
Yup. The whole world can’t sustain our habits in the first world. Gotta be some sort of systemic comprehensive change otherwise our children will inherit an alien planet
Absolutely, some of the flights you hear about these teams taking are so pitifully short its mental.
What?
How is this related to this post at all lmfao.
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.
You’re way to pesismistic. Europe is geographically the least affected area by climate change. Its also the place reducing emissions the most. Ironically funded by european tax, which football contributes to.
Go speak to the rest of the world and not on a european football competition post. Because they are the ones that will suffer, and we’re the ones reducing emissions.
we will be living on a planet that we can’t survive on.
Not true in the slightest. Humans have suffered through far more dramatic climate shifts than even worst case models - whilst being significantly less technologically able. There is 0 risk we cannot survive on this planet in europe.
Now go back to watching football, might cheer you up. No point being depressed.
they are just saying the amount of plane rides teams do is bad for the planet too, is that really difficult to understand lol
Competitions = Money = Tax = Theoretically more ability to invest in green infrastructure.
A lot of emissions is a money issue. Europe for example is over the curve and reducing emissions. Unfortunately the rest of the world got richer and worldwide emissions keep going up.
However I hate this stupid argument. Because its a drop of water in an ocean. Honestly not worth the argument.
If it was only teams it would be okay. But for big clubs you have thousands of travelling fans as well
Hopefully, many of those travel by train or bus and don’t use planes but yeah, cars suck as well.
it will reach to a certain point where clubs will purposely throw in the small cup and it turns into which team wanted to lose more.
100%. Doesn’t help that there is an international break every three weeks. It’s mental. Give them time to recover
Manager who doesn’t rotate his first XI when he has the option to is surprised when players get injured.
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
why are you kissing him
is that german or brazilian bunda ref ?
He’s not wrong. This is anecdotal, but the amount of non-contact muscle and ligament injuries I’ve seen in the past year to players that don’t get a break on international duty seems genuinely unprecedented.
Nation’s League needs to go. There’s no need to have competitive international matches outside of WC/Continental Cups and qualifying.
No one actually gives a shit about Nation’s League, but the international managers have to play their best squad available to pad their record and keep their job. Fewer competitive international matches would be better for everyone involved. Let some youngsters get a cap in a meaningless friendly and acjieve their dream of representing their country, and give the world class internationals a damn rest!
Difficult to disagree looking at the injuries. United have 7-8 injured currently and many of them key players.
There’s a joke about United’s playstyle and “crossed the limits of what fans can handle” somewhere
Laughs in Brazil schedule
Rotate your squad. You have some guys starting 60 games and others starting 5. That’s on the managers. I know the pressure to win is massive but that’s a cultural issue not a scheduling issue.
Faster pace and very high press too. Work rate to this gen player is insane.