There are "only 12 days before another Premier League season," according to Jeremy Wilson of the London TELEGRAPH. But "is there a manager out there who truly feels ready?" José Mourinho believes that his new ManU team "lost a week in China" during last month's ill-fated pre-season trip. Man City Manager Pep Guardiola warned rather starkly that football’s demands would “kill our players” while Arsène Wenger’s refusal to compromise on minimum summer holidays for his squad means that "he is already resigned to playing Liverpool on the opening day of the season without several key players." Even Sam Allardyce, who has another month before his first game as England manager, "does not expect the players to be fully fit." He said, "There is a massive problem for the top players because they will only just be joining their clubs in China or America or wherever it might be." Part of it is "an unavoidable consequence of the international scheduling, especially in those even calendar years when there is a World Cup or European Championship." Yet it is also "largely self-inflicted." Indeed, it is not just the most "marketable Premier League clubs who are now blazing a trail around the world." Crystal Palace, Southampton, Bournemouth, Leicester City, West Ham United, Stoke City and Swansea City have "all played at least one match" in the U.S. this summer. It all "begs an obvious question." At what stage "does the potential sporting advantage of holding, say, one focussed training camp in Europe outweigh the commercial benefits of the pre-season tours?" It is understood that appearance fees for the Int'l Champions Cup range from £5M ($6.7M) to around £15M ($20M) but "each place in the Premier League" is also now worth in excess of £1.5M ($2M). Yet it is "not just about the immediate return." The clubs are "embarking on a mission of global engagement that could have incalculable longer-term commercial benefit" (TELEGRAPH, 8/2).
