Winter Breaks Can't Happen

I’m getting sick of seeing managers and players moan about the ‘hectic Christmas/ New Year fixture schedule’ and wanting a winter break. We’re hardly into the festive fixture schedule and managers are starting to moan already, again.

Yes, I don’t know about physical conditioning and I’m just a fan and not a manager but I think there should not be a winter break, or even less fixtures over Christmas and New Year. Why?

Well:

1. It’s great for us fans. Let’s face it, without us fans football would be nowhere. There would be a LOT less money in it; hence these overpaid footballers wouldn’t get the ridiculous amount of dosh they get.

For me, a fan, it’s brilliant. I’ve just been to Everton v Norwich on Saturday, right after I’ve finished college for the holidays (what better way to start my long- awaited Christmas break?). Then on Tuesday night I’m watching Blackburn v Bolton on TV, Wednesday night I’m going to Everton v Swansea and Thursday night I’m watching Tottenham v Chelsea. Doesn’t that sound great if you’re a football fan? It’s brilliant, football almost every day. Your team is playing every 3 or 4 days, it adds even more excitement and eager anticipation to the festive period and it’s great for Christmas presents.

Plus, another great Christmas tradition in football is Boxing Day football. Most games sell out, it’s a fabulous thing to do for a lot of people the day after Christmas, and it’s great to get tickets as presents for people, especially children and people who don’t get to go that often. You can’t take this away from the massive amount of loyal supporters and the people who are most important to this sport.

(Brendan Rodgers: One of the first to moan this year)

2. The counter- argument to this would be ‘well it’s not good for the players, they need time to recover from games rather than playing every 2 or 3 days and that makes the quality of football decline’, but that’s what your 25 man squad is for. The allowance to register this amount of players and the transfer windows allow you to make sure you have a big enough squad to deal with periods like this in a season.

It’s not really like some teams have unfair advantages on others because they’re all in the same boat. They’ve all got to deal with this and change their team when they think it necessary. Man City are the anomaly because they can afford to have two world class squads, but this is why they shouldn’t be allowed to spend what they spend and why a spending cap should be introduced in terms of buying players and paying wages to players. But that’s another issue. Also, the games just after Christmas are scheduled against reasonably local clubs so the teams don’t have to travel far, so that’s another reason why it isn’t too strenuous.

Overall, it’s just brilliant for the supporters, whether you’re going to games or not, it’s fantastic to be able to go to games every few days and have loads of it to watch on telly. Even the away games are mainly not too far away so you have more chance to watch your team away as well. What a fantastic thing to do over the Christmas and New Year period, a haven for football. It shouldn’t stop. It’s one of the few things left in the soul of football, and this soul shouldn’t be ripped out any further than it already is, especially by rich, overpaid, over- privileged, selfish morons like foreign managers coming over and changing our wonderful game and it’s fabulous traditions, and leading people in the organisation of the game like Sepp Blatter and the Premier League and Football League's chiefs doing the same. Keep it as it is, it’s magnificent!