International Break: How Clubs Are Adapting

The club game has hit the brakes – and this time, it’s not a quick pit stop.

For the first time, the Premier League and Championship have shut down for three weeks in September, not the usual two. Four international fixtures, once split between September and October, have been squeezed into a single window. On paper, domestic football actually gains a week back across the season.

Tell that to the players left behind.

For those not on international duty, three weeks without a competitive minute is a long time. Too long, some coaches would argue, for athletes tuned to play, recover, repeat. So clubs have had to get creative.

This is how they’re filling the void.

Brentford: A week off, then back to work

At Brentford, the training ground is quiet. Most of the squad have disappeared on international duty, leaving around a dozen players behind, among them Callum Wilson and Igor Thiago. Five of that group are returning from injury.

Because they played Chelsea on the Friday night before the break, the Bees’ pause is even longer than most. Keith Andrews has chosen to lean into it.

He’s handed his first-team players a week off, armed with individual training plans. They’re free to leave the country, within reason, but nobody expects long-haul flights to be green-lit. Rest is the point, not jet lag.

The squad will regroup on Saturday, 26 September, and the tempo will rise again. The plan is to stage a behind-closed-doors friendly against another English club on the weekend of 3 October. That game could open the door for Nathan Collins and Sepp van den Berg to step back into action, with the rest of the side likely fleshed out by under-21s.

The second international break will be a different story. Brentford play Brighton on Sunday, 8 November and are back again against Everton on Saturday, 21 November. With fixtures bracketing the window, there will be no space – or need – for another friendly. Players might get the odd day off, but the rhythm will be closer to a standard training block, rolling straight into preparation for the Toffees.

Liverpool: Threadbare group, tight turnaround

At Liverpool, the pattern is more familiar: most of the squad away, a small core left behind.

Andoni Iraola will keep that group training, with a few days’ rest built in, but the real challenge comes later. Once his internationals return, the clock starts ticking. He expects “no more than three days probably to prepare” for Manchester City’s visit to Anfield on 11 October.

Three weeks off for some, three days for others. The calendar offers no middle ground.

Aston Villa: Emery goes back to Sevilla

Aston Villa have chosen a very different route.

Unai Emery is heading home. The Villa boss will take his side to Sevilla, the club where he built his reputation by winning the Europa League three years running, for the 15th edition of the Antonio Puerta Trophy on Friday, 2 October.

The fixture carries a weight that goes beyond fitness and tactics. It honours Antonio Puerta, the Sevilla wing-back who died aged 22 on 28 August 2007 after suffering multiple cardiac arrests during a La Liga match against Getafe.

For Villa, it’s a high-quality test in a charged setting. For Emery, it’s a return to a place where he lifted trophies and forged an identity. For a squad scattered by international call-ups, it’s also a rare chance to sharpen those who stay behind in a meaningful game.

Championship: Mowbray’s reset at Blackburn

Drop down a tier and the picture changes.

Championship squads are not ripped apart to the same extent by international duty. Many clubs lose only a handful of players. Blackburn Rovers, for example, have just four call-ups.

For Tony Mowbray, that’s a blessing.

Blackburn’s early season has been battered by injuries, with more than 10 players ruled out in the opening weeks. The break offers breathing space. It allows Rovers to ease back recent returnees like Gady Beyuku and Moussa Baradji, and push others such as Scott Wharton closer to full involvement.

After their trip to Portsmouth on Saturday, Rovers went back to Lancashire and into a stretch of focused work on the training ground. The schedule has been relentless so far, with league fixtures and the Carabao Cup packed in. This window gives Mowbray, back at the club since the summer, the time to properly imprint his ideas.

But it won’t be all double sessions and video analysis. He plans to hand the players a few days off at the end of the week. Someone like Yuri Ribeiro will be able to fly home to Portugal if he chooses.

Then the pattern repeats. Training in the first half of the following week, a short break over the weekend, and in week three a return to the usual pre-match routine before Cardiff visit Ewood Park.

Mowbray is also hunting for a behind-closed-doors friendly against a Premier League or League One side. The aim is simple: give minutes to those returning from injury and keep the rest of the squad sharp. When the shorter, two-week break arrives in November, time off will likely be briefer and any games more internal, mixing senior and under-21 players.

League One: Threading the gaps

Lower down, the calendar gets even messier.

League One keeps playing through international breaks unless a club has three call-ups that meet the EFL criteria. Hit that threshold and you can ask for a postponement.

The result this time? On each of the two affected weekends, only four of the 12 scheduled league matches have survived.

Clubs saw this coming. Many locked in Football League Trophy fixtures across these three weeks, ensuring they would still have competitive football even if league games fell away. Managers often rotate heavily in the Trophy anyway, so international absences don’t derail those plans.

Twelve teams will play twice in the competition during this window, with 10 clubs playing once. That left just Leyton Orient and Reading in danger of a complete blackout, but both have only one league game postponed, so neither will face three totally empty weekends.

The calendar has stretched, squeezed and twisted itself into a new shape. Some clubs are resting, some are rebuilding, some are scrambling for friendlies behind closed doors. When the league restarts, we’ll see who used this strange, elongated pause to their advantage – and who steps back into the storm still trying to catch their breath.