When does the Premier League winter break end?

Don't ever let it be said the English Football Association is not a well-oiled machine.

At the start of the new millennium, the organisation's chief executive Adam Crozier took on the advice of England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson and declared: "It's time to freshen up our players in mid-season." Two short decades later, the whirring cogs of bureaucracy finally sanctioned a Premier League winter break - of sorts.

Initially trialled in the 2019/20 campaign, COVID-19 delayed the hiatus' return until 2021/22 before last year's winter World Cup brought all club football to a halt. Eriksson and Crozier may be long gone but the winter break is back.

With the FA Cup third round concluded - aside from the slate of replays - on the opening weekend of January, here's when the "mid-season player break", as the league insists on calling it, will end.

When is the Premier League winter break?

Unlike European top flights across the continent, the Premier League will not shut down for a fortnight - that would be far too simple.

Instead, the normal slate of ten fixtures across one matchday has been split over two weekends. Half the division's teams will go straight from the FA Cup third round into Premier League action from 12-14 January. The remaining ten teams, theoretically, will have enjoyed a break before getting back to the grindstone between 20-22 January while the rest of the division puts their collective feet up.

To make up for all the time off, the Premier League has helpfully planned a full round of midweek fixtures immediately after the winter break, thrusting all 20 teams into the meat grinder between Tuesday 30 January and Thursday 1 February. Naturally, every club will be back in action on the first weekend of February.

However, England's domestic cup competitions have muddled this intricate scheduling. Ten Premier League clubs are involved in either the two-legged Carabao Cup semi-finals or the spate of FA Cup third-round replays which have been shoehorned into this theoretical period of rest.

All fixtures during the Premier League winter break

First week of the winter break

Second week of the winter break

Which Premier League club has the longest winter break?

The exact scheduling of the FA Cup fourth-round ties is yet to be revealed, although they will take place across the weekend of 27 January.

Burnley will not be involved after limping out to Tottenham Hotspur and are set to enjoy the longest break of any Premier League side. The Clarets need all the help they can get. Drowning in the relegation mire, second from bottom and five points adrift of 17th-placed Everton, Vincent Kompany will have 18 days free of any fixtures to mull over a possible escape route.

The mood of this lengthy hiatus will no doubt be heavily impacted by Burnley's final match; a visit from fellow relegation scrappers Luton Town on Friday 12 January. If the Clarets cannot close the gap to Luton - who are four points better off with a game in hand - Kompany may not be in place for the reunion with Manchester City at the end of January.

Most Premier League sides will enjoy somewhere between 12 and 14 consecutive days between games, with several clubs, including Arsenal and Manchester City, jetting off to warmer climes.

The seven top-flight clubs that will contest an FA Cup third-round replay do not have the same luxury of time.

Nottingham Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo called for FA Cup replays to be scrapped to stop Premier League teams from "suffering". Nuno's Forest will suffer more than most after drawing 2-2 with League One's Blackpool in the third round.

Forest were in line for a 12-day break until travelling to Brentford in the league on 20 January. However, the replay with Blackpool has been scheduled during the proposed hiatus (16 January). Now Forest have only been entitled to a maximum of nine straight days without a match. That figure could dwindle further if Forest qualify for the fourth round.

Chelsea eventually swept Preston North End aside to avoid any cup replays but had already booked their place in the Carabao Cup semi-finals. Had it not been for the second leg against Middlesbrough on 23 January, the Blues would have enjoyed the same 17-day gap between fixtures as Manchester City. Instead, Mauricio Pochettino has to also settle for just nine days off.

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