Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has urged his Barclays Premier League colleagues to join forces to protest against the hectic holiday programme as he called for a winter break.
Bruce hit out after losing Nedum Onuoha, Danny Welbeck and Asamoah Gyan to hamstring injuries suffered in the 2-0 home defeat by Blackpool, which came two days after Sunderland lost by the same score at Manchester United.
He said: "That's the biggest concern for me. If we don't speak up, all of us, especially as Premier League managers...
"A footballer can play every day of the week if you want him to, but to ask him to go and play at Manchester United and then play 48 hours later, this is the result.
"I have got three of them with hamstrings at the moment - Welbeck has got a strain, Gyan came off with a hamstring, Onuoha came off with a hamstring - and those are the consequences of playing two games in 48 hours at this level.
"We have got five games in 13 days starting from last week. It's ludicrous considering that was our 20th game today.
"We have played 18 games in five months, yet we are going to play five in eight days. I can't understand that, it does really baffle me.
"Those are the consequences because people are playing tired and they pull hamstrings, they pull muscles and it does upset you.
"It's nonsense, it really is nonsense. I just really can't get to grips with why.
"We should be taking a break too, there should be a break in here. Every country in Europe does it and we wonder why at international level when we ask players to perform, they are goosed.
"Because of the Premier League and the demands of it, they get to the end of the season and they are absolutely physically on their knees.
"That's not why we lost the game, that wasn't anything to do with it. But the consequences are we have lost three players with hamstrings and strains which could affect us now for two or three weeks."
Sunderland attracted their biggest crowd of the season - 42,892 - for the game, which will have delighted chairman Niall Quinn, but Bruce believes the tradition of packing so many fixtures into the Christmas period should be abandoned.
He said: "We have got to forget about tradition. I am sure we would have done on a nice summer's night or in the middle of spring - why not?
"Why not play it later on in the season? We should be breaking like every other country. Forget the tradition."
