There’s always one every year.

One manager who “slams” the fixture schedule at Christmas.

It’s usually Steve Bruce, it used to be Rafa Benitez, but neither of those two chaps are bothering us this festive season for various reasons, but this year the baton of chief moaner has been passed to Brendan Rodgers, the Swansea City Manager, who had this to say: “The people who put fixtures together do not have a clue about physical conditioning,”

He then went on: “If we are having a normal recovery period from a game on a Saturday, the Sunday would be the first day of recovery and then the players really feel the effects of a game on the Monday, so they have a second day of recovery.

"They don't properly come back up to speed until the Tuesday because of the tempo of the modern game.

"So for us on what would normally be a second day of recovery after we play Tottenham, we have to go and play another [game] full on, high-tempo Premier League at Aston Villa.”

This is a point of view that I can’t subscribe too. And I can’t subscribe to it for the simple reason that these people – whether they are Swansea players, or whatever team they play for – are highly paid, professional athletes and they are entitled to play a few games over the festive period as far as I am concerned.

There was another strand to Rogers’ argument too. He was angry at the two games in three days over the New Year weekend. For those that don’t know there are games on New Years Eve (this is a normal Saturday game) with another fixture two days later on the Bank Holiday and Rogers is less than impressed: “We don't need the Monday game," he said.

"They should play that game on the Tuesday or Wednesday or extend the season by a week. Or we could have a midweek game somewhere else in the season.

"I can understand the New Year's Eve game but is there a need for the Monday game? I don't think there is. It's ridiculous."

Let me, if I can, explain to Rodgers and anybody else who wants to bleat about it, just why we SHOULD have that game on the Monday. Its really quite simple.

People can get to the match.

It’s a bank holiday. People are off work. Therefore people can go.

Perhaps these Manager’s would like to consider, just for a second, the travelling supporters. If that game was on the Tuesday many of these would need to get a day off work – perhaps two.

Quite frankly its about time that football remembered that, first and foremost it is an entertainment business and as such, it has a duty to do just that – to entertain the spectators and perform. Whilst increasingly clubs – certainly at top level – are less and less reliant on gate receipts for income, playing games to empty stadiums would be pointless, and as such people in the game would do well to remember just how important the supporters are.

There is another reason for wanting the games over Christmas too. It’s traditional.
Forgive me for living in the past, but this is world where many of the things we used to hold dear about our game have been eroded and one of the only things we have left is the Christmas games – and lots of them.

Given the criticism from various sources, the cutting down of fixtures, just like video technology and the winter break, will probably happen whether we like it or not, so the Leisure Leagues Christmas message is a simple one:

Have a good one, enjoy the football, and don’t listen to Brendan Rodgers, or anyone else who thinks you shouldn’t.