Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has once again called for a winter break to be introduced in the Premier League.
Eriksson, who was in charge of the national team for five years from 2001 to 2006, believes that a week-long break in the top flight would improve England's chances of winning the World Cup for the first time since 1966.
"The Premier League must take a winter break if they want to win the World Cup. It's going to be easy if they do it. It's not that difficult. Take one weekend in January without football. Give the players before that weekend seven days off. Then you take them in to prepare for the game after that," Eriksson told BBC Radio Five.
"England has to find a way to do it because all the other countries in the world are doing it. Everyone agreed with me - everyone I talked to. We presented a lot of things - everybody said 'yes, yes, yes'. In the end, the Premier League didn't accept it.
"It made me very disappointed because I think everybody agrees that if you take a break, it will be very good for England as a national team. It's not that difficult to do - maybe the easiest thing. I know the players would love it and they would feel better [for] the rest of the season."
Eriksson recently revealed that he had signed a contract to replace Sir Alex Ferguson as manager of Manchester United before the Scot's retirement U-turn in 2002.
Barney Corkhill
