Burnout risk looms for City and Kop stars

IT might have been a quiet summer for England’s players, but it has been the opposite for some of the Premier League’s biggest stars.

Many are preparing to return to their clubs with heavy legs after nearly 12 months of constant football.

In Cairo on Friday night, the Merseyside pair of Sadio Mane and Idrissa Gueye lined up as Senegal lost 1-0 to an Algerian side captained by Manchester City’s Riyad Mahrez.

For all three, it was the culmination of one season that will now flow directly into the next one.

Mane played his first match of last season on August 12, scoring twice as Liverpool thrashed West Ham 4-0 on the opening day.

The African Cup of Nations final was appearance No.57 for a season that included an energy-sapping Champions League triumph and a neck-and-neck battle for the title with Manchester City. It’s a similar story for Mahrez.

The City attacking midfielder made his first appearance of the 2018-19 campaign a week earlier than Mane in the Community Shield against Chelsea at Wembley.

It is a situation familiar to Mane’s strike partner Roberto Firmino, who returned to Liverpool having won the Copa America on home soil with Brazil earlier this month. While that win over Peru would have sparked a carnival in Rio, it is unlikely that Jurgen Klopp would have been hanging out the bunting along Anfield Road.

The final at the Maracana stadium was Firmino’s 61st match of an extraordinary season.

That is one more appearance than his Brazilian team-mate, Manchester City’s Gabriel Jesus clocked up before he eventually downed tools for the summer in the first week of July.

With City looking to achieve a hattrick of Premier League titles this season and Liverpool bidding to win their first one since 1990, those four international players are likely to be crucial during the months ahead.

However, non-stop football for nigh on 12 months, with the risk of burnout, is hardly what the doctor – or Pep Guardiola and Klopp – ordered.