Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp says his players are in need of a real break

JURGEN KLOPP has sounded an ominous warning to English football over the crippling workload on Premier League players.

With many top stars currently in the red zone in terms of fatigue and susceptibility to injury, the Liverpool boss has flagged up the fact that next season’s opening fixtures will be played less than four weeks after the World Cup Final.

“When the World Cup ends it is the only time the boys can really have a holiday and you should give them three weeks at least,” says Klopp.

“The way things look, we will play before the players come back. Wow!

“In England, next season starts two weeks earlier than in Germany. Three weeks if you play in the Community Shield.

“Maybe in Germany they think they’ll be in the World Cup final!

“When do you give your international players any rest? How can they deliver always at a good level?

“Two weeks after next season starts we will stand here and you will ask me: ‘Why did he play like he played?’. I will say it’s because he had no time off since . . . 1960-something!

“This is a moment when somebody has to say, ‘Please, don’t forget the players.’

“It’s not about me. I have enough holidays. I could do what I do 365 days a year. But I don’t have to play, and that’s a big difference.

“If you really want to keep the quality high, then please, you have to think about it.

“In January we have two weekends with the FA Cup and maybe you could cut those games, play them in midweek perhaps. Or we could stop the season earlier or start next season later.

“But nobody is doing anything and at some point we have to do something.”

Klopp recently took his players to Dubai for a short break, a luxury the fixture list only allowed him because they’d gone out of the Carabao Cup early.

“In the last two years we couldn’t do it because we were in the semi-finals,” he says.

“There is nothing good about going out of the Carabao Cup, other than you don’t have to play two games at a time when everybody is pretty much on the edge.

“We took the opportunity and, hopefully, we will see a benefit.”