In June 2018 the FA, Premier League, and English Football League agreed to give England Clubs a two-week winter break. With Europa and Champions League continuing just around the corner the break can not come at a better time.
During this time Premier League fixtures will be split up over two weekends with eight teams playing between 8-9 February and the remaining 12 teams playing between 14-17 February.
The only FA cup fixtures to be played during this break are the FA Cup replays necessary to decide next round progression.
The point of the break is to give players much needed time to rest and recover especially after the first half of the Premier League season as well as a hectic FA Cup festive line up which have all contributed to clubs losing key players due to injuries caused by fatigue and over exhaustion.
This also gives the players time to prepare for the continuation of other competitions such as Champions League and Europa with the first Champions League game commencing 18 February with Liverpool Playing Atletico Madrid and Europa commencing on 20 February.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has already used the winter break as an opportunity to rest his senior squad as they continue they unbeaten run in the Premier League.
Although Liverpool had an FA Cup replay scheduled during the break, Klopp decided to instead field a youth squad made up of Liverpool’s up and coming U23Â players, who still managed to ensure that the senior players were still in contention for the FA Cup upon their return as they managed to beat Shrewsbury 1-0.
Klopp along with other club managers have hit out at the FA for not respecting the agreed-upon winter break by scheduling FA replay fixtures during this period of rest.
Chelsea and Manchester are the two clubs who will benefit the most from the break as they have a total of 16 days off from Premier League games.
The players have been given a few days to themselves to rest, travel and have time with their families before returning to training camp in preparation for their upcoming games.
Wolves and Manchester United will be holding their training camps in Marbella in Spain whilst Arsenal, and Sheffield United have chosen Dubai for their training camps
