Pep will give City stars staycation
CITY BOSS IN FIXTURE CONGESTION PLEA
PEP Guardiola has called on the Football Association to consider scrapping FA Cup replays in a bid to combat fixture congestion.
A week ago the City boss issued a passionate plea for the number of games to be reduced as he expressed fears for the workload on players, highlighting the injuries to Marcus Rashford and Harry Kane as well as Raheem Sterling’s loss of form given his hectic schedule.
Since then Sadio Mane and Jamie Vardy have also picked up muscle injuries.
And Guardiola said this is a clear sign of fatigue – and ahead of the Blues’ FA Cup fourth round clash with Fulham at the Etihad he believes scrapping replays could be one solution to the problem.
Last week he suggested abolishing the Carabao Cup, but Guardiola is aware that is unlikely to happen.
He has now called for other alternatives, such as ending replays and reducing the size of the Premier League and the Championship.
“When I said my comment, I never expected the Carabao or FA Cup was going to be substituted because what is nice in this country is how you maintain the traditions,” said Guardiola.
“You can involve some new things to make the competition nicer but all the traditions are there, not just in sport in culture and society and that’s top, I admire that.
“The Carabao and FA Cup will be played, maybe we could cancel the replays, maybe there could be less games in the Championship for example, less teams in the Championship or the Premier League. “You ask me.
“I come here you ask me a question and I was honest but I don’t think what they have to do because it’s not my business, my business is to prepare my team day by day. When they decide these games, we do it.
“For me it’s not normal to play 27 or 29 games, you need four days, the doctors say that, to recover 80 per cent of the effort you have played before, imagine that in two days and after three more days and after four days, that is too much, but they are not going to change.
“I know that. “So next season we are going to play this amount of games and there is going to be the same injuries because of the European Championship because after that they have two or three weeks off and they have to play again and again and it’s going to happen because it’s important for the English football, the Carabao cup, the FA Cup, the league and whatever – so after that I cannot say more.”
For me it’s not normal to play 27 or 29 games, you need four days to recover Pep Guardiola