Chelsea’s coach, Thomas Tuchel is concerned about the closeness of the World Cup and the Premier League as for now the World Cup is only a 100 days away. This will split the European football club season into two segments.
Now that Qatar has agreed to start the tournament a day earlier than it should’ve been, the time constraints are more concerning. Just last week both Tuchel and Klopp, the coach for Liverpool, slammed Qatar regarding this according to a sports news site.
Klopp stated that the football governing bodies need to protect the player’s interests as having two major events coinciding with each other is not the way. The Premier League will have a gap from 12th November until 26th December, while the World Cup will begin from 21st November till 18th December.
There is a clear disparity between Liverpool and Chelsea. A midseason break could pay huge dividends in the second half of the season, which does not end until the Champions League final in Istanbul on 10th June.
Tuchel says the players are very focused on the World Cup already, which is a good thing because they come in shape and take care of themselves.
“But it’s also a bad thing because they are also focused on the World Cup and not just here. We will see how it influences the players and their performances in October when it gets closer.
“It will have a huge impact emotionally and physically on the players; they will come back drained. Big success and huge disappointment can also drain them mentally, and then days later we have Boxing Day. I’m a bit uncertain about all this” said Tuchel.
With 20 players from their squad joining the World Cup, Chelsea might be the team that suffers the most. For a team of 25 players, that sums up the majority of their team.
As stated by a sports site, other teams are also affected by this such as Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester City. Antonio Conte, Tottenham’s coach is very well aware of this predicament as 17 of his players are headed to the World cup.
However, for Arsenal and Manchester City, they have 14 players each and Liverpool at the lowest with only 11 players that are selected to Qatar.