MANAGERS make me laugh when they moan about playing too many games.

David O'Leary, in particular, hasn't given up complaining about four games in eight days over Christmas.

It didn't seem to hurt his players too much, winning two and drawing two of them.

Just like having five days of rest didn't do much good for Bolton when they were run ragged by a Manchester United side which had played when Wanderers had the night off three days earlier.

There's a lot spoken about players needing a break as if playing 90 minutes of football twice a week is somehow going to burn them out.

I've never known a player who wanted a rest and playing 164 consecutive games for Chelsea never tired out Frank Lampard.

I'm not sure this nurse-maiding of players is good for them.

With, say, six domestic cup games and another half dozen European games, a full season these days consists of 50 matches.

Modern day managers would never ask their players to play all of them, 40-odd being deemed more than enough for one man.

The phenomenon of squad rotation has become the in thing with whole different teams picked for different games to give these athletes time for rest, recovery and preparation.

It's a different world from the Liverpool side of 1983/84 which played an enormous 66 games using just 16 players.

Four of them played all 66, four more played more than 60 while 10 of the 16 played more than 50 games.

It didn't do them any harm as they won the League title, League Cup and European Cup and that team was good enough to beat any of today's Premiership sides.

The argument that today's football is more physical is complete rubbish because they had to withstand crippling challenges every game back then whereas the tackle has been virtually eliminated from today's game by over-protective rule-makers.