Calls for a Premier League winter break as injuries stock up

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce has called for a winter break claiming the load on players this year is greater than ever as the Premier League is getting faster and more demanding, both physically and mentally.

Both Diafra Sakho and Stewart Downing have returned to West Ham from international duty with injuries adding to an already stretched list of absentees.

Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert has also warned that his club may have to address how their players are dealt with during international breaks following their latest injury crisis.

The demand

Allardyce has long been a fan of recharging everyone’s batteries, and sees no reason why a short break after the hectic Christmas schedule cannot be worked into the domestic schedule.

“The demand on the players in the Premier League is so great for so long and so often that eventually they are going to break down at some stage,” he said.

“If you look at the load this year on players, it gets greater than ever before. Not only do they travel at international level across the world, but the constant pressure of the Premier League is getting faster and more demanding, both physically and mentally.

“The time they have to rest is fewer and further between and that ultimately ends up with players never really recovering fully enough to go into the next game, hence they go into a game with a knock or a bruise and it ends up resulting in an injury.”

International break

Jores Okore and Ciaran Clark are Aston Villa's only fit recognised centre-backs at the moment and Lambert admitted the club will now be extra vigilant in their future dealings with the relevant international set-ups. The injury to defender Switzerland Philippe Senderos proving the final straw for the Scottish mananger.

“We need to make people aware of things , if that’s what’s going to happen to your player,” said Lambert, who felt the Swiss had mismanaged his player.

“We’ve had discussions as a club and are not happy. The medical people aren’t happy either. We had a meeting with Tom Fox (chief executive) and said we are not happy with the way things have been handled. This is not normal.”

Skipper Ron Vlaar is also sidelined with a calf problem he suffered on duty with Holland while Nathan Baker is out until 2015 after picking up a knee injury at West Ham.

Tradition

Allardyce is confident that a winter break could solve the problem. He feels that the league still don’t look after its players as well as other countries, “because we don’t put a couple of weeks in January to re-charge the batteries for everybody and let them go again.

“It would give the players a better finish to the season, our team always increases its level of performance physically when we come back from having a sunshine break for five or six days, I make sure we get one somewhere along the line.

“The proof of that is our physical stats increase from there until the end of the season, which gives us a platform to get better results when everyone else might be tired.

“Our Christmas period is traditionally something we always have to keep, but the players don’t half get some stick when they have played their fourth game in eight days with people saying ‘they don’t look sharp, they don’t like they are trying’, when they have just gone through that period of time when everyone else is getting ‘popped up’ and enjoying themselves and having their presents — these lads are having to go and perform for four games in eight days and they wonder why they are tired at the end of it?

“If you can’t get a rest then, that is going to promote even more injuries.

“The injury list for most clubs in and around December and January was horrific for a lot of teams across the entire football league.”

Allardyce believes despite an already packed fixture list, the effort should be made to find some mid-season downtime.

He added: "We would not be disturbing those (traditional Christmas fixtures and then there is the third round of the FA Cup. "Should we not extend the season a little longer at the back end and cope with it that way?

“The fans buy into international breaks no problem. It is a fact of life.

“Remember, they didn’t buy into us kicking off on a Monday night or at 12:30 on a Saturday or Sunday lunchtime when Sky came in, but they are happy with it now.”