Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag says players are struggling to perform at consistent levels because they are being “overloaded”.
His side beat Liverpool 4-3 in the FA Cup but then struggled in a 1-1 draw with Brentford in their next game.
When asked to explain the contrasting displays, Ten Hag cited player workloads.
“The players get overloaded and can’t bring the performances any more,” the Dutchman said.
“We are already I think over the point of what we demand from our top players,” he added.
Ten Hag said it was not just his side being affected and suggested the Manchester City team which drew with Arsenal at the weekend, where Kyle Walker and John Stones were absent, was “different” to the side United lost 3-1 to last month.
“You see the levels dropping with them [Manchester City] again, it was a different team to when we faced them, so yeah the levels with teams will drop at any moment if we keep going in this process by overloading the international programme,” he said in a news conference before Thursday’s Premier League game against Chelsea.
“You can’t 100% avoid this, it’s impossible, it depends on certain facts. Also you have national teams and so five times a year you give the players away and you don’t have any impact.
“With some national teams we have very good connections, we manage the programmes, but there are also others who do what they want and you don’t have anything in hand, but they are doing that.”
Ten Hag also said his players “don’t train too hard” between games so as not to further increase the demands on them.
“We need to be fit, the standards in this league, you need to be fit otherwise you can’t match the standards that are required in a game. We don’t train too hard,” he explained.
The 2022 World Cup was staged in the middle of last season, leading to more fixture congestion domestically, and the United boss believes that is still having an impact.
“I know it still has an effect, the huge number of games in the last 18 months, it still has an impact on our squad, the accumulation on the players,” he said.
Global player’s union Fifpro has said football needs to do more to protect against “dangerous levels of fixture congestion”.
Meanwhile, world governing body Fifa is expanding its Club World Cup competition, while European football’s governing body Uefa is increasing the size of the Champions League from next season.