Matt Maher: Bad break for Wolves after such a short season
Conor Coady and Jack Grealish would surely disagree, but there are many who would claim the current international break is the most ill-timed ever.
With the longest season in history having been followed by the shortest pre-season ever, Premier League managers have lost several members of their squad for most of the fortnight before the new campaign begins.
Dean Smith caught a break in that respect, with Villa not kicking off their season until a week later after being paired with Manchester City on the opening weekend.
No such luck came the way of Nuno Espirito Santo, who might have been forgiven for wondering where everyone else was when he walked into Compton Park on Tuesday, just three weeks after the Europa League defeat to Sevilla.
Coady’s call-up, long-overdue and well-deserved though it was, means the Wolves boss will be missing eight senior players for the first week of a pre-season which will last less than a fortnight.
Losing players to international duty comes with the territory for Premier League clubs of course but these are still far from normal times. One suspects Jurgen Klopp spoke for all top-flight managers when he compared the experience to a father watching his daughter depart on her first date.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘worried’ because I know that everyone tries their best to keep them [the players] safe, like ourselves,” he said.
“Of course, if your 16-year-old daughter goes out for the first time, even if it is a good guy, you are slightly concerned. That is what I would say and that is how it is for the players.”
Klopp was speaking ahead of last Saturday’s Community Shield, the traditional season curtain-raiser which took place four weeks to the day after the FA Cup final.
At some point in the next few months we will hit a point when the fixture list will have almost caught up with traditional dates. Until then those of us who organise our lives around it will be struggling to believe what month it is.
What certainly isn’t in doubt is the fact the 2020/21 season promises to be among the most frenetic and unpredictable ever at pretty much every level of the game.
And on some levels, of course, the 19/20 campaign hasn’t even finished.
Halesowen Town head to Concord Rangers on Saturday to play an FA Trophy semi-final which should have been played six months ago.
Only when that competition is concluded, later this month, will the longest ever season finally be over.
