Championship Fixture List "Unfair"

[BBC Sport]

Steve Cooper: Championship fixture list unfair says Swansea City boss

Source: BBC Sport

Steve Cooper has claimed the Championship fixture list is "unfair" as Swansea City prepare for Tuesday night's meeting with Blackburn Rovers.

Swansea made the long trip to Barnsley for a televised fixture on Saturday night.

They will be back on their travels again for a midweek game at Ewood Park.

"We've got to go to Blackburn on Tuesday and we're still in Yorkshire at twenty past ten on a Saturday. It's unfair," said Swans head coach Cooper.

"We've got four days of travel, truth be told.

"It's going to be really tough, a quick turnaround for Tuesday. Is it unfair and unkind? Yeah. Would they do it to some of the other clubs in our league? No chance. Sometimes we get that treatment, but we'll get on with it."

The EFL has declined to comment.

Swansea's 2-0 triumph at Oakwell boosted their automatic promotion hopes.

The second-placed Swans have a four-point cushion over Bournemouth, who are third, ahead of the meeting with mid-table Blackburn.

Cooper, who hopes to add new faces to what is a fairly small squad this month, says keeping players fit and available will be key in the second half of the season.

"What's important this year is that this is a season for adapting," he said.

"We've had really busy periods already, nine games in 29 days (earlier in the season), that's never been done before.

"I've said all along, player availability is key to giving yourselves the best chance this year.

"The players have taken great responsibility for that in terms of their recovery, nutrition, making sure they get the right amount of sleep and looking after themselves. The more fresh our boys can be going into games the better."

 

[Blackpooljack]

Dont think Coops should make comments like these if anything he should say " f*ck it just bring it on " it would give out the impression to the rest of the league that "we can deal with anything the the league throws at us "

 

[JackSomething]

Given this and his comments about referees, I guess he's going for the siege mentality in the team. Make the players believe that everyone is against them and they're not just taking on 11 players, but the whole football establishment.

Not a great fan of the tactic personally, but it worked for Ferguson and Man United.

 

[Badlands]

We and teams outside the central England corridor, like Exeter, Torquay and Carlisle, have always had these drawbacks.
Sounds like he's setting up his excuses and n case they are needed.
He has the same habit as Monk when it comes to pointing the finger.

 

[AceJack]

These days there's no combination of games in the championship that could be described as easy. The congested fixture list and the Cup are just exacerbating a problem we've always faced. Every away day is a long slog when you're the club that's tucked away furthest down the M4.

 

[Pegojack]

It is what it is, Steve, get on with it. No whinging, no excuses. Who do you think we are, Cardiff?

 

[JackFish]

Not sure how this is any different to playing Wednesday night then Saturday afternoon to be fair. In fact you get less time off in that case with less than 72 hours between games.

 

[SkipTheJack]

The hugely congested fixture list this season is always going to affect us more than most clubs because of our geographical location. Watford, for instance, are so spoilt for their location that they chose to fly when they played us! When you factor in our relatively small squad it's a double extra challenge for us.

There are always options. We could have stayed over somewhere for three nights and made a mini break of it. Or maybe sign some more players this month so we can rest bodies.