The 2016-17 season of the Premier League kicked off on August 13 as the English League initiated around 1 week earlier than many other top European Leagues such as the Italian League and the Spanish League.
Both of those European competitions initiated around 6 days later in comparison to the Premier League and Mauricio Pochettino of Tottenham Hotspur is not a fan of having the league kicking off so early.
The Argentine manager of Tottenham Hotspur voiced his disagreement in having the Premier League so early as this causes a slight problem for the players that were performing with their national sides during that period of time. Those players had to represent their countries at the international stage and shortly after that, those who formed part of clubs in the Premier League had to come back to their respective clubs and perform in the top tier English League.
Tottenham Hotspur’s Mauricio Pochettino said: “You cannot play the Euros and start the Premier League season on Aug. 13. How can you give rest to the players, after the whole season?I understand that it’s business, our supporters and the people want to watch football but it is very bad for the players.”
“The problem is we need to adapt the preseason for the players who were involved in the Euros. They arrive all at different times because they finish in different times. It is a very hard thing to do and it is very tough to manage them during the season, too, because it is not the same when you play 90 minutes.’’
Hugo Lloris recently picked up a hamstring injury during Tottenham Hotspur’s match against Everton as the Frenchman only played for the opening 45 minutes of the game. The French shot-stopper had a pretty busy summer as he had to perform for France in the 2016 Euro’s and even captained his national side in the finals.
After performing for France for the 2016 Euro’s and shortly after that having to come back to Tottenham Hotspur, this vast amount of matches and brief resting time is believed to be one of the reasons of why Hugo Lloris sustained an injury so early in the season and it’s because of this that Mauricio Pochettino believes that the Premier League kicked off too early.
