Why the Premier League Should Move to 16 Teams

"It's diabolical." "It's a disaster." "It’s crazy." It's not often that you can get Sam Allardyce, Pep Guardiola, and Jurgen Klopp to agree on something. And yet the ridiculousness of the Premier League's (PL) December schedule prompts contempt and disapproval from nearly every PL manager. There's nothing as universally loathed in the league.

Reasonable yet small suggestions of moving games by a day or two have even been made by those managers, noting the seemingly arbitrary nature of the schedule. And yet, while those changes would be a solid beginning they should only be the start. In fact, the changes I propose should be far larger, and would have a seismic impact on the sport and even how the game would be played.

The Premier League should move to 16 teams. Before you get up in arms, there is precedent for this change. It moved from 22 to 20 in 1995 to deal with fixture congestion and in 2015, FA Chairman Greg Dyke even recommended it be downsized to 18 and Gabriele Marcotti agrees.

As an American, I'm not bothered that England struggles internationally because of its grueling season. So for those England fans reading this, I'm not suggesting this radical reform for you, even though you might be the greatest beneficiaries.

Instead, I'm recommending this wholesale change because it would mean less player injuries, more team preparation time between games, more importance on every game, better quality of play, and better familiarity with teams & players. That’s a lot to chew on so I'll break it down one by one. But before I do, what would a 30 game season look like? What are the possible logistics of it?

There's several ways to do this, each with its own pros and cons. Remember four fewer teams means eight less games.

Option #1: Three week winter break plus eliminate all Premier League (PL) midweek games. Teams playing in Europe will still play midweek games, and teams in the Carabao Cup. However, more scheduling flexibility would be possible with those games as result of the lightened schedule. The benefits are obvious. Teams have the necessary time to prepare between games and players have the winter break for recovery.

Option #2: Four week winter break, extra four weeks in summer break and keep all midweek games. The benefits are extensive recovery time in both summer and winter. Also, players would have significant time to develop a skill with extended time off in the summer.

Option Three: Three week winter break, extra three weeks in summer break and eliminate two midweek games. This mix is the best of all the options. Players have a winter break that is similar to the one afforded to Spain and Italy, less fixture congestion, plus they have enough time to properly recover in the summer and even develop their game if they choose to.

Recovery Time

Perhaps the most significant reason the PL should go from 38 games a season to 30 would be player recovery time. This would eliminate not just the crazy four games in 213 hours, but also afford the PL a winter break similar to the rest of Europe or even Germany, which typically gets a month off. It is proven that injuries rise in the UK to a staggering degree because of the hectic schedule. In a 2007 study, it was shown that in England the amount of injuries doubled from January to March, and quadrupled in April and May compared to leagues that did have a winter break.

This year injuries as a whole went up by 32% in December and soft tissues injuries increased by 45% according to Ben Dinnery. With the league getting more intense and players conducting more sprints per game, more recovery time is needed. 48 hours simply isn't enough. More injuries mean star players are also casualties to the schedule and end up missing extensive time. Gabriel Jesus, Mohamed Salah, and Philippe Coutinho are among the stars who have been recently injured during this congested time.

Preparation Time

Less games means more time to prepare for games. There are five midweek PL games this season (2017-2018), which could possibly be eliminated. Practice time is the biggest casualty of the fixture list. Some coaches get as little as seven-and-a-half hours per month to train with their players. The more time coaches have with their players, the more they will be able to teach them their tactics and philosophy. Therefore, players will not be figuring this out in games but on the practice pitch.

This time can also be spent on being more innovative. Teams can create new set-piece routines and new ways to attacked teams that park the bus. Currently teams don't have the time to adapt their formation or style of play week-to-week to counter their opponent.

Increased Value on Each Game & Unpredictability

It's simple, yet true. Less league games only heightens the importance of every game. At the end of the season the margin between teams would be less because of the shortened season. Teams would not have the ability to go through a bad eight game stretch. Every loss would be catastrophic to a title or champions league contender(akin to college football in the US). With less games, volatility would be increased and consequently increases the likelihood that a smaller club breaks in European competition or even pulls a Leicester. Imagine if this season ended in the middle of March. Think of the attention that would be paid to every game.

Player Development

In the summer of 2016, promising Liverpool youngster Sheyi Ojo played in the U-19 European Championships in Germany and then skipped his holiday to join Liverpool's first team in California so he could impress Klopp. Weeks later he had a back injury and would not play until December. He had to choose between necessary rest and rushing back to impress his coach. A shorter season would have prevented this impossible decision.

Consider athletes in other sports. Baseball players have three months to recover and work on their game. Basketball players have between 2-5 months. American football has 4-6 months. How many months then does a football player get? Zero. Football players- in the big five leagues- get 2-4 weeks and that's it (Side note: If I was playing I'd play in Sweden and take the 2-3 months). It's enough to go on a short trip, relax and reenergize before a new season.

An extended break that lasted 6-8 weeks would be enough time for a player not just to recuperate from the long, taxing season but to also develop a skill. It's common in other sports for players to reinvent their game and make a big leap in performance. While 2-3 weeks may be enough time to reenergize the body, it is not sufficient to do so AND come back with a drastically different skillset. Players typically build their skills during the season which is already difficult given their limited time. Could you imagine how much better Theo Walcott would have been if he had an extra 3 weeks per year to develop his game (12 yrs x 3 weeks= 36 weeks, nearly an 3/4 of a year)?

Better Quality of Play

With less injuries to the game's best players, more preparation time, less player fatigue and more time for player development, the quality of play would increase significantly. Additionally, you're trimming the fat and eliminating the worst 20% of the league. No room for bottom feeders who start Danny Graham, like Sunderland did in 2016.

Better Familiarity with Players/Teams

When you cut 1/5 of the teams from the league you get to know the ones that stick around. The teams that stay would be on TV more and it won't be difficult trying to think of more than four players on West Brom because they were only on TV 11 times last season.

Arguments Against

The reason it hasn't happened and won't happen is the same reason most things don't happen. Money. Less games mean less revenue. Teams instead of hosting 19 PL games will host 15, so a loss of 4 games which means millions of dollars. In theory this would also mean the loss of 20% of a players paycheck as they're playing in roughly 20% less games. However, in 2015/16 only 17% of the league's revenue came from matchday revenue per Deloitte. A much larger percentage (53%) of team's revenue came from broadcasting.

This is where it would be the most interesting. They could still broadcast as many games as they currently do because they broadcast less than half of premier league games. However, much of the domestic broadcast money is tied to subscriptions that Sky and BT are able to generate from the TV packages. If 20% of the games go, will 20% of the subscriptions leave too?

Furthermore, teams would vote against this immediately because they'd be even more scared for their own survival.

The Football League might actually be for this reform as it would strengthen the Championship as the clubs that drop down would be that much better and be potentially bigger in size. Although this might force England to adopt the five tier system that has already been proposed.

Of course, to many people the greatest benefit would be the increased fortunes of the English national team who haven't made a semi-final in a major competition since the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Pundit, coaches, and players regularly attribute their poor outcomes to England's unforgiving schedule.

The PL can look at Belgium, Serbia, Sweden, Belarus and Ukraine as examples, as they all have 16 team leagues. Belgium started their season on July 28th and it finishes on March 11th (although the top 6 teams have playoffs that go on longer, which I'm not proposing England do). It has a three week winter break and yet it only has 3 midweek games throughout the season.

It's time England followed suit and joined Europe. A decent compromise would be 18 teams which would cut four games from the schedule and at least be able to give the UK a break similar to Italy and Spain. It's all moot because money talks and as long as money talks, players will suffer, the quality will suffer and the national team will suffer.