The international break is not something that managers seem to approve of and this is becoming evident as each season passes by and more coaches are revealing their disgust.
The main problem about the international break is that the players have to leave their clubs for a few weeks and practice as well as play friendly matches with their respective national football team. There is one huge dilemma that the players experience when playing with their national sides and it’s the fact that injury is something which seems to always affect them.
Arsene Wenger is another manager who has expressed his disgust to the international break as the Frenchman usually gets to see a few of his key figures sustaining an injury which is a huge blow for their league charge.
Sam Allardyce is now the latest coach that voiced his frustration to these events and the manager of Sunderland even labeled these friendly matches as: ‘’stupid and meaningless’’
The 61 year old manager of Sunderland, Sam Allardyce said: “We’ve got two home games coming up, although we’ve got two weeks to wait for it because of stupid friendlies and international games. You have to put up with that. We had to wait two weeks for the Newcastle game when we didn’t want to. And now we’ve got to wait another two weeks, with international players going away, when there’s a chance they’ll get injured.’’
“Part of the reason why we’re performing so well at the moment is we’ve kept most of the players fit since the turn of the year. We’ve got them fitter, performing better and the new players have made a difference. We’ve just got to do that last little bit to get more enjoyment out of playing well, and that’s by winning.”
Seb Larsson, John O’Shea, Jordan Pickford, DeAndreYedlin, LamineKone and Patrick van Aanholt are the 6 key figures of Sunderland that had to make their way to the international stage and represent their respective countries.