Winter Break?

[saunders_heroes]

England aren't good enough. Never have been never will be, and a winter break will make no difference what so ever, apart from pissing off fans who love the games over Christmas.
Club football over International football every single day of the week.

[dave.woodhall]

They wouldn't touch Christmas. If there was going to be a break it would be between the FA Cup third and fourth rounds in January.

[VillaZogmariner]

As Dave said, it will be mid-January that they have a break, for 2 reasons. First (and main one) being the money they'd lose over Christmas, and secondly because it is over January that most games seem to get postponed.

Personally though, I think it needs a lot more than a 2 week break to sort the national team out. For a start, there are Premier League based players who seem to have coped well enough so far (Tevez, Mascherano, Boateng).

[cdbearsfan]

The mid season break won't make a difference to the national team. If England are ever going to be any good they need to stop picking English players, like the cricket team have done.

[VillaZogmariner]

Exactly, look at the success we had when we had players like John Barnes and Tony Dorigo!

[villasjf]

OK so we have a mid season break in mid January say and the weather is fine then we get a really bad lot of snow for 3 weeks when we are supposed to be playing. this means a fixtuture pile up and knackered players. Wont work, sorry.

[ozzjim]

Or we play in the snow like they do in the rest of the world! Modern pitches can deal with it with undersoil heating, covers etc.

A break in Jan would be useful no doubt, but it wont change the performance of the ENgland side. The loss of some ego and some more intelligent players will do that.

[Nev]

Would a mid winter break improve Wayne Rooneys appalling attitude?
Would a mid-winter break galvanise our players to show passion and endeavour?
Would a mid-winter break stop the national manager from continually picking players on reputation and not form?

If the players are tired it's from chasing lucrative commercial deals and making adverts. Something that they will, I'm sure, continue to do if a break is bought in.

Keep the excuses coming, it abdicates the players from any responsibility and the hand wringing will start all over again in four years. It's pathetic.

[john e]

i dont know what the answer is, but England have been rubbish for nearly 40 years,
stumbling to a semi final penalty shoot out once  every 20 odd years.

you could argue that when we had creative players in abundance in the 70's we had a worse situation, with England not even qualifying for two majors during that time.

in fact our record in the last 20 years is better than the 20 years previous, when we had hardly any foriegn players, and the national side actually meant something to players and supporters alike.

so i just dont know, but one thing is for sure, its not a recent problem, its been going on for donkeys years

[Lenny_AVFC]

I'd quite like a break over Christmas, usually have better things to do and regularly have to miss boxing day and new years day games. They're the first fixtures i look for hoping were away on them days. But january is boring, if there was no football i'd go mad.

If it helps stop injuries and fatigue at the end of the season, O'neill seems to think this is the case, then I'm all for it. Although people will just start to use the excuse that players are tired from playing three games a week. These poor little professional athletes cant deal with working 270 minutes a week

It will NOT help England one bit though. Its a bullshit excuse for us being crap. As mentioned by somebody else, Mascherano, Tevez, Boateng, Kuyt, Van Persie, Mensh, Pantsil, Dempsey, Pantsil seem to be coping fine.

[bobcat]

From a Villa point of view, a month of in march would do quite nicely.

[DB]

To add to Dave's comment, I agree and I would have the break in early Jan. They wouldn't touch it, most of us enjoy the boxing day fixture. We need one, from a footballing perspective, other big leagues have it. I can't think of an EPL based player that has done well at this world cup, look at Torres.
However, with regards to fixture pile-up, how many other leagues have 2 cup competitions Spain don't.

[supertom]

Plus the season ended in mid-may. The world cup started 2nd week in June. The players had a few weeks without playing competitive football (just a few laboured friendlies). It's not like they finished on the last day of the season, flew straight out and had to play within days.

Moany bunch of pampered buggers.
"I'm tired"
"The pitch isn't pristine enough!"
"I got caught having extra maritals by the missus!"
"I don't like the new football"
"Fabio won't let us drink beer"
"I played shit and the fans booed me, and hurt my feelings. I don't care that they've saved up for a year to come over to watch me half ass my way round the pitch with a constant look of forlorn discomtempt on my Shrek-like Mug, how very dare they!!"
"I want to be captain!"
"No I do"
"Actually I am skipper"
"No you're not John, you're a penis, and no one likes you"
"They all think you're a dick too Steven...fuck off!"

[Drummond]

The winter break would work for us because we have a small squad and our manager picks the same players week-in, week-out.

There would be no benefit to England.

[Legion]

Also on Pravda.

Fabio Capello has called for a winter break - and it's a request Martin O'Neill fully supports.

Capello this week insisted part of the reason for England's poor showing at the World Cup was fatigue after a long and gruelling Barclays Premier League campaign for his star names.

He believes this end-of-season tiredness would be alleviated if the top-flight followed other major leagues in Europe and took time out just after the New Year.

While not looking at it from an international standpoint, O'Neill agrees with Capello that  it's time for a change in the fixture scheduling.

O'Neill believes the move would give players fresh impetus later in the term.

The Villa boss first mooted the idea during the UEFA Cup campaign two seasons ago when he found his own claret and blue players taking part in the competition after a hectic festive spell.
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German sides like Hamburg and Wolfsburg, meanwhile, were going into their clashes following a winter on the sidelines in the Bundesliga.

The gaffer believes the time is now right for the Barclays Premier League to follow suit, having originally seen the benefits of the break with Celtic.

O'Neill said: "My own view is there should be a winter break. I think it would be a fantastic thing.

"I believe it would give everyone a lift in January. We had it for a couple of years in the Scottish Premier League and we all got great benefit from it.

"I am a great believer in it and I think it is important. But I am not controlling affairs.

"People assume it causes a loss of impetus but that's absolutely not the case.

"You would still have Boxing Day and New Year games and then you have the break - for about three weeks.

"It gives the players a chance to get away with their families. They feel much better for it. It was so beneficial.

"One of the years when we had the break in Scotland, Celtic went on to reach the UEFA Cup final. I genuinely believe the winter break was of great benefit for us."

Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has also come out this morning in support of a winter break.

He believes the Barclays Premier League must introduce it if the national side are to be successful at major tournaments.

Eriksson said: ''I don't think there is anything wrong with English football. The only thing I was fighting for [when I was in charge] was a winter break, but because of money the Premier League never accepted that.

''England is the only country in Europe without a break and when it comes to these big tournaments they are suffering for it.''