Rodgers bemoans Leicester's 'nonsense' festive schedule

"You play on the 26th, a high-intensity game against Liverpool, fighting for the result. In football, it's the second day where the players suffer.



"You get that first day of recovery but it's the second day where it's really tough for a player. If we go along that route then the second day, instead of recovering, we're kicking off at 5.30pm at West Ham. It's just nonsense really.



"The players understand where we're at. This is where our squad really comes into it. We can't have the same team playing every single game, because we want to keep the energy in the team as much as we can."

Does fatigue influences injury risk?

Yes. The fact that most of injuries occur in the latter stages of games halves (6) has been associated with decrements in functional markers such as strength (12,21,24) or joint position sense (22), measured at half time and after 90 minutes of real match play or simulation protocols. Additionally to isolated variables quantification such as strength or joint positions sense, authors like Barrett et al. (2016) using a soccer specific simulation protocol have shown a loss of movement efficiency that occurs throughout a football match. In their study there was an increase of the ratio between the accelerometer-derived variable PlayerLoad™ and the total distance covered in the latter stages of each half. This suggests a loss of efficiency in the participant´s locomotive skills throughout the protocol, which theoretically can be associated to the increased injury incidence observed in these periods


Although this process is well known, if the player´s fitness status of the player is the correct one, especially during the game day, the likelihood of the player to be exposed to extreme levels of fatigue will decrease, and therefore not only it will not impair his performance levels as also the will not increase his injury risk..