McClaren backs mid-season break

Ken Dyer13 April 2012

England assistant coach Steve McClaren today supported the growing lobby for a mid-season break in the Premiership.

McClaren, a Premiership manager at Middlesbrough, also believes that some domestic cup competitions should be scrutinised to help ease the pressure on the top stars.

England striker Michael Owen also said that that demands of a gruelling club season are beginning to take their toll on the country's top players.

Owen has been plagued by hamstring injuries throughout his career and said today: "Anyone playing in a Premiership game who doesn't wake up with an ache or a pain the following morning is a better man than me.

"Every game is important and to come through a full season, especially if you're in the Champions League as well, and not get injured is very tough.

"Some people might get injured and that might be their body saying they're doing a bit too much."

McClaren believes that injuries to young stars caused by over-playing should be a thing of the past because of the academy system and close monitoring by the Football Association's technical staff.

He did concede that the demands have never been greater on the top players and he said: "It's asking a lot of our players and we should perhaps look closely at cup competitions, when they're played and also a mid-season break."

Meanwhile West Ham's Trevor Sinclair may not know for almost another two weeks whether he will play a part in the World Cup finals.

Sinclair was put on standby a week ago, following the knee injury to Newcastle's Kieron Dyer and is with the England squad in South Korea.

England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson must confirm his definitive squad by midnight tomorrow but is allowed to make a change for an injured player up to 24 hours before the start of the tournament.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in