Wenger wants friendlies scrapped

Benedict XVI

From the BBC

Wenger wants friendlies scrapped

West Ham v Arsenal
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger wants international friendlies to be scrapped and for changes to the format of the World Cup and European Championships.
He wants midweek internationals to be played on Tuesdays rather than Wednesdays to give players more time to recover for club matches.

Wenger said: "We must get rid of friendlies and reorganise all the international competitions.

"You get a player back on a stretcher 24 hours before a must-win match."

Everyone wants to block their ears but that cannot go on forever

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger


He added: "It's impossible for a player to come back in good form and prepare properly when he has played for his country on a Wednesday evening in Turkey.

"You'd have to be a magician rather than a coach to get them back to their normal selves by Saturday."

The Gunners boss wants football associations to be held accountable for injuries incurred on international duty, a principle backed by the G14 group of elite European clubs, including Arsenal.

Wenger said: "Everyone wants to block their ears but that cannot go on forever.

"Take the average salary of an African player in the Premiership and compare it with the standard of living in his own country and you can well understand why it's difficult for a club or a player to be compensated by an African federation over cases of injury.

"Fifa must take the lead and make the national federations subscribe to a worldwide insurance system."

I agree with him to certain extent, something has to be done about friendlies. The likes of Brian Kerr takes then too seriously and Sven Goran Erikson not seriously enough. I recall a few years ago FIFA coming up with some plan to make friendlies ‘competitive’ and the results counting to qualification seeding or some such, nothing came of it.

From and Ireland point of view Kerr should use friendlies to give the like of McGeedy, Elliot etc a run and not just bring them on for 10min at the end, leave the top player at home to rest, they having nothing to prove.

Kingp35

The Gunners boss wants football associations to be held accountable for injuries incurred on international duty, a principle backed by the G14 group of elite European clubs, including Arsenal

This is the only part of that that I agree with. Clubs shouldn’t have to foot the bill if a player gets injured on international duty and some sort of compensation should have to be paid to them because ultimately they are the people paying the players wages.

As for friendlies it would be a terrible idea to scrap the. How would we breed young players into the international set-up and find out if they have what it takes? How would we be able to test out new possible formations? How would we be able to test out our tactics? How would we keep the team together as a uni if they didn’t play with each other for long periods? The list goes on and the positives of friendlies far outweigh the negatives.

If players cant be ready for games on Saturday then maybe after midweek internationals all league games should be played on the Sunday. Doing away with friendlies would cause allot of problems for international teams

Pigman II

Arsene should get the premiersh1t to reduce it's members from 20 to 18 first and only then worry about scrapping friendlies.

Friendlies fixtures are a joke in the modern era but no more so than say Chelsea v Sunderland (or whoever the current bottom feeder is atm)

eirebhoy

Kingp35 wrote:

If players cant be ready for games on Saturday then maybe after midweek internationals all league games should be played on the Sunday.

Thats a good point. Wish there was a way of getting it out.

horseflesh

I've said it before and I'll say it again;
International football is on its way out......

KdjaCL

horseflesh wrote:

I've said it before and I'll say it again;
International football is on its way out......

k... So the world cup that every single player in witta chance of playing in is the biggest thing for their careers? playing for your country will never go out of style as long as the World Cup is about.

The G group are suing Fifa/Uefa for them to pay the players whilst on duty with them which is fair enough, they will win. But internationals freindlies are the only way for a manager to get his team playing his way before big games, scrapping them would be mental. There should be a unified calendar of 8 games a year 5 real games and 3 friendlies with the format play wed and sat so it only happens for 5 weeks, once at the start of the season once at the end then be easy to fit 3 into the season.


kdjac

Lemlin

The Premiership should be reduced to 18 clubs and a winter break should come in.