West Ham United boss Sam Allardyce believes the Premier League needs a winter break.
Clubs face a crowded festive fixture list, including two games in 48 hours.
Hammers play derbies against Chelsea on the Friday of Boxing Day and Arsenal on the Sunday.
Allardyce favours a winter break saying: "My opinion has never changed and it never will.
"If you keep flogging your players then you're asking for injuries and the player will pay the price further down the line.
"Injuries have a great cost to every investment you make in football because every injury takes its toll on a player.
"But if they consistently start getting injuries, it will shorten careers.
"There's science out there to show how it should be done - but until everybody gets their heads together and really sorts it out, we're always going to be faced with the fact that at this time of the year we're going to ask them to deliver four games in eight days.
"For them not to have a break means they open up to being criticised.
"That's because the players can't get to where they want to get to in order to produce the sort of football everybody is expecting them to, simply because they're not physically capable of doing it any more."
