Something has to give – Ange Postecoglou wants solution to packed calendar

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou has warned “something has to give” when it comes to a jam-packed football calendar.

Only last week England captain Harry Kane admitted players are not listened to when it comes to the schedule with FIFA’s revamped Club World Cup competition this summer only set to further muddy the waters ahead of the 2025-26 season.

Spurs travel on Thursday to London rivals Chelsea, who have been criticised for a £1billion spending spree since owners Clearlake Capital took over in 2022, but now boast an enormous dearth of talent which may help them handle the Club World Cup.

Nevertheless, Chelsea’s recent form has been mixed and coincided with a plethora of injuries, which was also the case for Tottenham during a winter period where Postecoglou was regularly without 10 players or more while still in multiple competitions.

The former Australia manager feels a meeting of governing bodies to solve an ongoing issue is inevitable, Postecoglou said: “The demands of international football, of continental football, are increasing.

“So at some point something has to give if we want the product to remain and we want to look after the most important participants, which are the players.

“This is the only league where you have got this amount of teams, three cup competitions, no winter break and no sort of rest weekends before European fixtures. It’s the only league that does it. Either we’re smarter than everyone else or maybe there’s something in what others are doing.

“There has to be a time where everyone sits together and I know it’s going to hit revenues and the players are part of that because they are beneficiaries of those revenues, but we will get to a point to where we get rid of squad limits and clubs have 40-plus players to cope with it, or you are going to get what we have at the moment.

“You watch the Arsenal game and players getting injured, going down getting injured. It’s going to become more prevalent I think.”

While Tottenham’s injury crisis has eased, Dejan Kulusevski is still sidelined with a foot issue, but on track to be in contention for the trip to Eintracht Frankfurt on April 17.

Spurs’ season hinges on Europa League success and Postecoglou remains hopeful the trip to Stamford Bridge is the first of 14 fixtures between now and May 25.

“We kind of know now that there’s nine league games, hopefully five in Europa, so you’ve got 14 games – 53 days together,” Postecoglou said.

“So, you’ve got a clear amount of time, with no interruption, so you’ve got a clear plan there of what we can do, but you’ve got to chip away at it game by game and it starts tomorrow night.

“I do sense the players are excited by the prospect of, ‘we’re here now, whatever we’ve been through, we’ve been through and we’ve still got an opportunity to do something special this year’.

“Let’s tackle that in the manner we try to do everything so far. Playing our football and having a real positive mindset about things.”