Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has hit out on the Reds’ hectic schedule throughout the upcoming festive interval.
As a consequence of continental and home cup commitments, the Reds are set to play 9 video games earlier than the top of the yr, together with three within the area of six days between December 20 and December 26.
Writing within the match programme forward of the Reds’ UEFA Europa League conflict with LASK at Anfield, Van Dijk said: “There are occasions throughout the season when video games come so thick and quick that it appears like you haven’t any sooner completed one and also you begin making ready for one more one virtually immediately. There isn’t any doubt that the approaching month is a type of intervals.
“From tonight’s fixture onwards we are going to play 9 video games in 27 days, which is clearly a problem, however additionally it is a schedule that each one of us has to and can embrace as a result of solely by attacking it collectively will we get as a lot out of it as we probably can.
“I’ve spoken on plenty of events in regards to the dangers that an overly-congested fixture calendar causes to gamers and I stand by each phrase. That is very a lot a dialog that soccer must have for the sake not simply of those that play, but in addition for the sport itself.
“This shouldn’t be controversial as a result of everybody in soccer ought to have the perfect pursuits of the sport at coronary heart. It’s nearly discovering the precise steadiness that works for everybody.”
This is not the primary time that Van Dijk has lamented fixture scheduling, insisting that the quantity of video games being performed in England is resulting in extra accidents to high gamers within the recreation.
“In England we imagine the schedules are too busy,” the defender stated again in October.
“The gamers are getting paid properly nevertheless it ought to by no means come at the price of our well being. We maintain having to play an increasing number of video games. We as gamers ought to begin saying one thing about it, contribute to an answer.”
There are presently a whopping 107 Premier League sidelined resulting from a wide range of damage considerations heading right into a busy Christmas interval of fixtures, with Liverpool presently lacking the likes of Alisson, Andy Robertson and Diogo Jota.