Give Sam a break... he’s right!

THE second week of January and Bayern Munich are warm-weather training in Doha during the Bundesliga’s winter break. It was 23˚C there yesterday, rather like a Bavarian summer’s day. In England, meanwhile, another German, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, is preparing to put his club’s place in the FA Cup at risk merely to save his senior players from the physical calamities he fears await them at League Two Exeter tonight. Liverpool have a proud history in the FA Cup and have never devalued the competition. English domestic football puts an unrelenting strain on its players at this time of year, though, and as Klopp sends out a team for the fourth time in 10 days, it is not surprising the former Borussia Dortmund coach has decided tonight’s game in Devon is one he may have to sacrifice. This week’s exchanges with Sam Allardyce have been entertaining and the Sunderland manager deserves credit for yesterday’s apology. The discourse initiated by Allardyce in a radio interview on Wednesday, however, was valid and pointed to a serious issue that undermines the chances of our national team in major tournaments and indeed the quality of football we see in the Barclays Premier League. We play too much football at this time of year, that is beyond doubt. Our club footballers are flogged, the assumption being that this overload of competitive action in mid-winter is what the paying public wants, simply because this is what it has always been given. Attendances and TV audiences remain high over Christmas and the New Year. Perhaps that in itself is a persuasive argument. But how many outstanding games of Premier League football did we see over the holidays? Not many. Stoke’s 2-0 win over Manchester United and subsequent 4-3 win at Everton stand out but by the time opportunity knocked for Mark Hughes’ players in the Capital One Cup against Liverpool this week, they had nothing left. That, interestingly, was another point made by Allardyce on Wednesday. Nobody wants to detract from a decisive period in the English football calendar and if we were to experiment with a mid-season break then something — in all likelihood the formats of the domestic cup competitions — would probably have to change. Nevertheless, the risks to tired players deprived of the respite afforded those on the continent are clear, both in the short and medium term. In England our footballers lie on treatment tables while the rest of Europe laugh at us from their sun beds. It is our choice and Allardyce and other managers like him are quite within their rights to question it.