Are Wigan's players tired? Villa's players? No. The reason Gill wants the break is because his players have played 6 more games via the Champions League. United were one of the teams in the G14 demanding UEFA introduced the league knockout stages (to ensure they had more chance or earning TV money and more chance of qualifying for the latter stages). Revert back to the straight knockout stages and there will be a chance of fewer games, but that wont happen.

Also, the weather. So we have a break over Xmas and shuffle games around and then have a bad January or February. Then what?

Finally, as stated elsewhere, can Gill guarantee that his club wont jet off to Singapore for his tired players to keep fresh by playing games over there for that countries loyal supporters?