Allardyce Urges Fixtures Re-Think

Last updated : 27 January 2005 By Mark Heys
Bolton Wanderers manager Sam Allardyce has urged the Premier League to re-think their current fixtures policy, as his side are about to play two games in three days within the next week.

Wanderers travel to Oldham Athletic in the FA Cup on Sunday afternoon and then face Tottenham Hotspur in the Premiership just over 48-hours later. The Bolton boss says something drastic needs to be done when compiling the fixture calendar as the current demands are weighing heavy on everyone at the club.

"The Premier League and football itself is asking too much - we played five games in 13 days over Christmas, My players are knackered and I am mentally shattered at the constant demands of trying to get the team to get to the highest level of performance.

"You wouldn't ask a horse to do it, you wouldn't ask a greyhound to do it, you wouldn't ask a sprinter to do it. But we seem to ask elite footballers to do it. It will have to get less but quite how it can get less I don't know."

Allardyce is known to be in support of clubs opting for a winter break as has been done in the Scottish Premier League for the past few seasons. Whether or not this gets the go-ahead in England remains to be seen but it would be one solution for a long standing problem and would relieve fixture congestion.