Villas-Boas vents fury at ‘career-threatening’ fixture scheduling

Andre Villas-Boas has warned that his players’ careers could be wrecked because of a fixture pile-up caused by the Football League.

The Football League have decided Tottenham will play Aston Villa in the third round of the Capital One Cup on Tuesday, just two days after the north London club face Cardiff in the Barclays Premier League.

Given that Spurs play Tromso in the Europa League tonight, Villas-Boas’ squad face a hectic period of three games in six days.

The Portuguese understands the need to schedule the Cardiff game on Sunday, but he is perplexed as to why his squad will have to play at Villa Park 48 hours later, especially when some Capital One Cup fixtures are taking place on Wednesday.

Although he has a big squad at his disposal, Villas-Boas fears some of his players could suffer serious injury because of the close proximity between the Cardiff and Villa games.

“After this game we have not only the Sunday game but the Tuesday game, which I found as an incredible surprise,” Villas-Boas said.

“How can a game be scheduled immediately after two days? It’s putting the players’ careers at risk.

“I find it absolutely incredible that we have to risk injuries to our players in a game that they play on that Tuesday. The second day of recovery is the most dangerous day for a player to pick up an injury.

“If this is not taken into account I think it’s bad. Obviously other things have to be respected and because of the fixtures that are being played on the Tuesday and Wednesday.

“But the problem is that in the end, Tottenham was chosen to play on Tuesday, with only the Monday to recover from the last match, and that puts us in a very difficult position.”

Villas-Boas vented his anger at the Premier League two years ago when his Chelsea side had to play Wolves two days after they lost against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.

This time it is the Football League that is in his sights as it is the organisation that organises the Capital One Cup.

They defended the scheduling, pointing out that it would be unsafe to move Spurs’ game to Wednesday, when West Brom and Birmingham are also playing in the Capital One Cup.

Both of those clubs are also playing teams (Arsenal and Swansea) that are in action on Sunday as well.

Villas-Boas can at least take comfort from the fact he will be able to rest a number of players for the visit of Group K outsiders Tromso.

The Norwegian side only made it through to the group stages of the competition because the team they lost to in the play-off stages — Besiktas — were disqualified for match fixing.

Villas-Boas will be without Aaron Lennon because he is still struggling while Romanian defender Vlad Chiriches is, remarkably, still to receive a work permit even though his transfer from Steaua Bucharest was completed three weeks ago.