Southampton boss Ronald Koeman has spoke of his disagreement at the Premier League’s scheduling over the festive period, describing the closeness of the fixtures as “impossible” for his side.
Koeman told the media in his recent press conference about how he felt as though facing Arsenal in a late kick-off on Boxing Day before travelling to face West Ham in the evening just two days later was far too strenuous on his Southampton team.
In last season’s fixtures at this time of year, Koeman was forced to make four changes from the team he fielded that beat Crystal Palace 3-1 to the side that drew 1-1 to Chelsea at St. Mary’s; an amount of changes that the Dutchman is not entirely comfortable with making.
It’s too much and we have to travel (to West Ham). The rest between the two matches should be at least 48 hours. In our case it’s not 48 hours because we play at 7.45pm on Boxing Day and then on Monday at 5.30pm.
We have 45 hours…no, a little bit less, as we have to travel. Of course it’s London and it’s close, but still we have to travel; impossible, but okay, we accept it and we play.
There is no doubt that rotation will be necessary for Koeman’s Southampton side, due to the risk of injury from playing too much in such a short space of time for the players.
Yes, yes: you can’t play with the same 11, it’s impossible. I was watching back to last year and we made four changes between Boxing Day against Crystal Palace and the Chelsea game. I remember some of the players were gone after 50, 60 minutes.
However, this year it seems as though the Saints boss has more players at his disposal as the squad depth is considerably stronger than last year; a feature of the squad that Koeman will look to utilise.
I will make more changes to the team this time.
Koeman and his Southampton side will look to use the busy Christmas schedule to get back to winning ways, starting with a big result against Arsenal on Boxing Day.
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