Man City Boss Pep Guardiola Calls Busy Fixture Schedule 'Disaster' as De Bruyne & Jesus Face Layoffs

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has railed into the Premier League's hectic fixture schedule and believes it harms the players. 

While divisions across Europe enjoy a winter break over the holiday period, December and January become the busiest months of the year for Premier League clubs. Guardiola's Man City face their fourth match in 11 days when they go up against Watford on the 2nd January. 

City suffered heavy injury losses during their last match against Crystal Palace which saw their 18 successive league victories come to an end. Kevin De Bruyne and Gabriel Jesus were both forced off with injury during the match, but the club have learned the extent of the duo's injuries and they are not as bad as initially feared.

While injuries are an unfortunate part of professional football, Guardiola believes that Premier League's busy fixture list does nothing to help the players. The boss said (via BBC Sport), "If you tell me that technically, physically it's good for the players: no, it's a disaster."

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The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss admitted that he still needs to adapt to congested nature of England's domestic football schedule. He added, "sometimes you have three days' recovery, sometimes four, sometimes two, everybody is the same.

"Last season we had less recovery than this season, maybe next season we will have a little more. It is what it is. This kind of thing I can give my opinion, but do you believe I am going to [get the authorities to] change something? No way."

Guardiola is not the only Premier League manager to complain about how fixtures are planned in the division. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has also criticised the lack of recovery time teams get between matches. For now, City face two matches this week against Watford and Burnley in the FA Cup.