Is there a Premier League Winter Break in 2023?
If you roll back to the winter period of 2022, the FIFA World Cup was taking place in Qatar, so there was an enforced Premier League winter break of sorts. This temporary pause that came into place for Premier League outfits began in mid-November and ran through to Boxing Day. Now, there isn’t a World Cup in 2023, but there is actually a Premier League break coming up.
This time around, there won’t be a Premier League break in December. It’s going to come after the festive period, which English football is famed for because of how many games are played in quick succession. Instead, the break of sorts will occur in January, and more specifically, Gameweek 21. In this scenario, matches for that specific game week will be played across a fortnight rather than over one weekend, so every team is going to have a week’s break from competing, and it’s this that’s being classed as the new Premier League winter break.
Why winter break can affect your team in Premier League
The Why: The Premier League Winter break is largely in part to teams having played 3 games in the space of 10 days before the recent FA cup fixtures, but also due to the fact that the new rules on added time have made games substantially longer and more enduring that ever before. This has left many teams exhausted and a weekend split into two sets of five games helps to alleviate this to some degree.
The Dates: Five of the standard ten matches will be played this coming weekend from the 13th to 15th of January, while the remaining five will play between the 20th and 22nd January.
The Fixtures: Despite Chelsea and Fulham facing off in the Carabao cup this week, both will be involved in the first weekend of matches. In fact, this weekend has some mouthwatering games planned so be sure to check out the latest Premier League Betting odds here.
Premier League Gameweek 21 fixtures
The Premier League fixtures for Gameweek 21 are set to take place on the weekend of January 13 and then the following weekend, beginning January 20. The fixtures are as follows:
Sat Jan 13
- Chelsea v Fulham
- Newcastle v Man City
Sun Jan 14
- Everton v Aston Villa
- Man Utd v Spurs
Mon Jan 15
- Burnley v Luton
- Arsenal v Crystal Palace
Sat Jan 20
- Brentford v Nottingham Forest
- Arsenal v Crystal Palace
Sun Jan 21
- Sheffield Utd v West Ham
- Bournemouth v Liverpool
Mon Jan 22
- Brighton v Wolves
The Premier League break that sees Gameweek 21 split into two segments has been facilitated by the decision to move FA Cup fifth-round games to midweek while also dispensing of replays for the fifth round, too. Instead, if fifth-round games are level at full-time, extra time will then be played before a penalty shootout. All of this combined is designed to reduce fixture list congestion while also being key to improving player welfare by preventing burnout. It also ensures that during the break, Premier League football is still played every weekend, just at a reduced number of matches.
Weekend Football Match recommendation
Week 1 :
• Burnley vs Luton
• Chelsea vs Fulham
• Newcastle vs Manchester City
• Everton vs Aston Villa
• Manchester United vs Tottenham
Week 2:
• Arsenal vs Crystal Palace
• Brentford vs Nottingham Forest
• Sheffield United vs West Ham
• Bournemouth vs Liverpool
• Brighton vs Wolves
While many of these fixtures will have to compete with absentees at the AFCON and Asian Cup, the Winter Break certainly takes some of the pressure off the teams, allowing both players and managers a chance to regroup and reflect on the season’s performances. However, if you’re a die-hard football fan and aren’t looking forwards to a lesser schedule of football than usual, fear not, as many of the Premier League teams will still be in action as several mid-week fixtures are set to take place. Tuesday 16th January and Wednesday 17th January will see several teams replaying FA Cup draws, but for more information, you can check out the latest FA Cup betting odds. A week later, on the Tuesday 23rd January and Wednesday 24th January, punters and fans can look forwards to the second leg of the Carabao Cup, and fear not, we have all the latest Carabao Cup betting odds for you here as well. In the meantime, feel free to check out our other articles and get ready for a weekend of incredible games as Newcastle face off against Man City and United play Spurs.
When was the Premier League’s winter break first introduced?
You have to go back as far as 2018 to discover when the Premier League, the EFL and the FA all decided to approve a winter break or a mid-season break as it was initially described. There had long been calls for the football calendar in England to be paused midway through the season because of how congested the fixture list was becoming and in an attempt to improve player welfare. Other leading football divisions, such as Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga, had deployed winter breaks to great effect, too.
Since being approved, the standard way the Premier League break has been enforced is to take the entire fixture list of one single game week and then split it across a two-week period, which usually includes matches on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. This ultimately guarantees each team in the English top flight a week off from fixtures. The winter breaks have been scheduled for different periods since their inception, with the 2019/20 season’s in place for February. Last season was totally different because of the Qatar World Cup, but moving forward, the break is scheduled to happen in the second week of January and the week following.
Why has the Premier League introduced a winter break?
There are multiple reasons why the Premier League decided to introduce a winter break, and there are also reasons why, since the introduction of said break, the decision to do so has been proven to be correct and more important than it initially seemed.
As mentioned above, other leading football leagues in Europe successfully implemented a winter break, and they reaped the rewards from it. Fixture lists were less congested, and player welfare was boosted, too. You could also argue it enabled teams to play at the top of their game more consistently. In turn, the break, in many ways, helped football fans, especially those who enjoy accessing football odds, because results and performances ran more true.
Since the World Cup in Qatar and from the beginning of the current football season, especially in the Premier League, matches have been lasting a lot longer because injury time at the end of each half is more accurate. Ultimately, this means that players are playing for longer and the ball is in play more, and this solidifies the decision to enforce a continued winter break. It will be interesting to see how this affects Premier League betting markets in Gameweek 21 and beyond.
