Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has joined Manchester United counterpart Jose Mourinho in questioning the wisdom of playing international friendlies during the recent break.
Mourinho argued that holding non-competitive international fixtures during the middle of a domestic season does not make sense, having seen Phil Jones and Chris Smalling both return from England duty with "long-term" injuries.
Guardiola was also questioned on the matter and he agreed with his Manchester rival, claiming that the number of games players take part in nowadays is "crazy".
"The federations and the managers want the players to play as much as possible to play games to prepare for the World Cup. Of course we want all the players to go there. I never [prevent] one player from going. But we want them to go there and come back safe, and play as few minutes as possible," he told reporters.
"I agree a little bit. Now we play for many things. All the clubs are here for many minutes and the people are preparing for the quarter-finals of the Champions League, the Europa League, for the Premier League, for qualifications, and it's a risk to play a friendly game.
"If we could avoid this, that would be better, but the schedule is the schedule. It's too many games. It's crazy how many games there are in all the leagues. Always the national team deserves to play games, but when we have 20 games in a thousand million competitions, it looks a little ridiculous."
Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Pablo Zabaleta all suffered injury scares during the international break but are expected to be fit to face Arsenal on Sunday.
Barney Corkhill
