Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino says the Premier League season should have started later, claiming the summer internationals have left it “very difficult” to prepare his players.
On Thursday, Pochettino said coaches had been put in an “impossible,” no-win situation by football’s decision-makers, telling a news conference: “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?”
Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris will miss the next month after picking up a hamstring injury in the opening minutes of Spurs’ Premier League curtain-raiser at Everton, having played just 45 minutes of preseason after captaining France in the Euro 2016 final on July 10.
Pochettino said Lloris and Tottenham’s other Euro 2016 representatives had been left in a “very bad” situation by the demanding international and domestic schedule.
Next summer there is no major football tournament and, asked if the Premier League should have started later, Pochettino replied: “I think, yes. Why rush to start the competition? Why?
“I understand that it’s business — our supporters and the people want to watch football — but it is very bad for the players.”
Lloris was among 10 of Spurs’ 11 Euro 2016 representatives who did not travel to Melbourne for the International Champions Cup from July 22-29, remaining in London while Pochettino received daily reports and videos of their progress.
But eight of Pochettino’s starting XI at Goodison Park played at the European Championship and the manager says the players remain at different levels of fitness, making it almost impossible for him to prepare training sessions.
“The problem is we need to adapt the preseason for the players who were involved in the Euros,” he added.
“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.
“For example, Saturday, the level of [players’] fitness are all different and some players need to rest one day more, or 12 hours more, and you have to do this and that to change the training session.
“That is very difficult. It is a difficult job for the sports science and medical department because you are a manager who says, ‘I want to do a tactical session,’ and they say, ‘Yes, but be careful with this guy because he is tired, this one is not good, maybe it is better that this one does not train and rests a little bit more.’
“Always, it is a mess and in your head you are mad when you try to put all that together to try to play well afterwards.”
Spurs face Crystal Palace at White Hart Lane on Saturday in their second Premier League match of the season.
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