Premier League winter break will clash with FA Cup replays AGAIN next season

The Premier League winter break will clash with FA Cup fourth-round replays again next season, raising the prospect of more clubs being denied their full period of rest.

Manchester City and West Ham became the latest clubs to be forced into an early return from their break on Tuesday when their postponed league game from last weekend was rescheduled for next Wednesday.

Last week, Liverpool, Tottenham and Southampton were forced to change their plans to contest FA Cup replays.

Such fixture congestion has undermined the impact of the winter break, which was introduced for the first time this season.

The Premier League initially guaranteed every club between 13 and 16 days' rest this month, similar to the break afforded teams in most other leagues in Europe.

But the need to schedule FA Cup replays has made a mockery of the break — Liverpool, Tottenham and Southampton have had a maximum of 11 days between fixtures.

And the impact of Storm Ciara means City and West Ham will now meet at the Etihad Stadium just 10 days after the original game was postponed.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was so incensed by the fixture pile-up that he did not even attend the club's fourth-round win over Shrewsbury last week, fielding a team of youngsters so his first-team squad could have their full winter break.

Klopp has called for FA Cup replays to be scrapped, but despite such anger Premier League managers will face exactly the same scenario next season.

A draft schedule for the 2020-21 campaign shows that the winter break is again pencilled in for the first two weekends in February, with the first fallow weekend to be preceded by FA Cup fourth-round replays.

The problem of fixture congestion is so acute that the Premier League had to seek special dispensation from UEFA to reschedule West Ham's trip to City for next Wednesday, as it will clash with two Champions League last-16 ties, including Tottenham's home leg against Red Bull Leipzig.

Under normal circumstances, domestic league games are not permitted at the same time as European ties, but UEFA have reluctantly granted permission for a 7.30pm kick-off at the Etihad due to the 'exceptional circumstances' of City's fixture backlog.

City only have one other free midweek for the rest of the season, and that will be needed for a rescheduled League game if they beat Sheffield Wednesday to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals next month, so the Premier League argued that the West Ham game needed to be fitted in as soon as possible.