Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker says “nobody asked the players what they think about adding more games, so maybe our opinion doesn’t matter,” and Manchester City defender Manuel Akanji says he “might retire at 30”. The upcoming schedule is inhumane.

Alisson Becker when asked, “What do you think is the appropriate amount of football for a top player to be playing in a season?”:

Nobody asked the players what they think about adding more games, so maybe our opinion doesn’t matter. But everybody knows what we think about that, having more games. Everybody is tired of that (question).

I think this is not only a question that I should answer here. Okay, the number is thirty, or the number is forty, but it is a matter to sit down all together and listen to all the parts because we understand we have the side of the media, from TVs, we have the side from the UEFA, from the FIFA, from the Premier League, from the domestic competitions. We are not stupid; we understand that. We understand that people want games; people want more games, but the reasonable thing would be all the sides that I mentioned, all the people who are responsible for making the calendar, organizing the calendar, to sit together and listen to all the parts, including the players.

Manuel Akanji:

It’s getting more complicated. It’s just got bigger—more games. It was six Champions League group games; it can go to ten (in the league phase). If you’re going to do this, you need to take some games away; you can’t just keep adding game after game and assume everything will be like it was.

You have to think about players. When games get tougher, you want to put out your best team. At some point you’ll be too tired to play any more games. Then come injuries, definitely. We train as hard as possible, and we’re fit—but there has to be a limit.

We have the Club World Cup at the end of this season—it’s just game after game, and I don’t know how it will work out over the next couple of years.

Let’s say we win the Premier League or FA Cup, then go to the final of the Club World Cup; the Community Shield is three weeks after. So when do we have holidays?

There are no breaks in winter. If we’re lucky, we’ll get two weeks, and then we need to be back and into next season.

Then the next summer it’s the World Cup, and then there’s another Club World Cup the following summer. Maybe I’ll retire at 30!

Many managers and players have spoken out recently, but more need to speak out together, including us fans.

I can’t sit here and talk about matches without highlighting this. This affects the game more than any tactic.

It is hard to enjoy the matches knowing how tired the players are. You can see it on their faces and in their body language. The human body reaches a limit.

We want to see players on a level playing field performing at their best. There needs to be a better balance met by those creating the schedule.