Too much football

Since the start of the 2018-19 season, Arsenal player, Bukayo Saka, has played 186 times for Arsenal and 43 times for the full England team.

He is 23 years old.

At the weekend he suffered a hamstring injury that will keep him out of the team for "several weeks".

Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur will have played at least twice a week since the last international break at the beginning of November all the way through to the end of February. Many of their players will be expected to play in most of those games.

Spurs already have significant injury issues, with all central defenders out, and against Liverpool yesterday their bench was made up mostly of teens.

Since the beginning of November, the once almost unbeatable Manchester City have won only won one game, the month before their holding midfielder, Rhodri was ruled out for a year with an ACL tear. They also have other players out through injury.

Those losses have been:

1. Bournemouth 2 Citeh 1.
2. Sporting 4, Citeh 1.
3. Brighton 2, Citeh 1.
4. Citeh 0, Spurs 4.
5. Citeh 3, Feyenoord 3.
6. Liverpool 2, Citeh 0.
7. Citeh 3, Forest 0.
8. Palace 2, Citeh 2.
9. Juventus 2, Citeh 0.
10. Citeh 1, Manchester United 2.
11. Villa 2, Citeh 1.

Since 2020, and the great restart of football in June of that year, football has been pretty much relentless, with the remainder of the season played, then the next season completed on time despite starting late. That was followed by the delayed Euros, followed by another season with qualifying for the 2022 World Cup to be completed within a year. The Finals were inserted into the season in Decemeber, and all football had to be moved to accommodate it, and the season only finished a week or two later than normal. In the remainder of that season, qualifying for the 2024 Euros had to be completed, so that this summer the finals took place. Then came this season, which at the end of it there will be the first FIFA Club World Cup finals.

THere is no time for player's mind and body to rest, just have a week off and get ready for the next season. And modern tactics are the high press, which involves lots of running backwards and forwards either pressing the man with the ball, or chasng it if the opposition got the ball through the press. This season there is also the expanded Champion's League, with two extra group games, an added round of play-offs for those who don't finish in the top eight.

And who will stop this madness?

The argument for the Premier League was more money to buy more players, to reduce the amount of game time. But every game must be won, and to win you have to play your best players. So they play again and again until they break either their bodies or their spirits.

There can be no real changes in football until something that comes along to reduce, significantly, the number of games players at all levels are expected to participate in.

And then there is the elevated risk of early onset dementia that studies have now proven professional players are at risk from.

We could all do withless football, with a gap at least every other year of three months, and a gap that clubs could not arrange lucrative overseas tour to expand their brand reach.

Enough is enough, if clubs or football itslef cannot reduce the number of games to protect the players, then the Football Regulator should do so.

Tired players are at a higher risk of injuries like hamstring strains and the such. So, either limite the number of games in total, or number of games that a player can take prt in over a season.