DON'T be too surprised when calls are made for a winter break during the festive period.

Managers and players will no doubt make known they are still unhappy with the sheer volume of games they are involved in over the Christmas and new year period - and will demand the football authorities do something about it.

It is a common cry every season with managers and players complaining of burn out and an injury crisis enveloping their club all due to the fixture overload. A contributory factor to fixture pile-ups are games postponed due to frozen pitches during the winter period.

Yet, despite the regular complaints from managers, nothing is ever done about it, and it seems as if it never will be.

Trevor Brooking, the Football Association's Director of Football development, reiterated future plans for a winter break were 'highly unlikely' earlier this year.

Yet the French Championnat, Spanish La Liga and Italy's Serie A all prove they benefit from a break in the season in December.

The Scottish SPL has also proved a halt in the league programme is beneficial. They introduced a winter break for the 1998/99 season and carried it on for a further three seasons with great success.

Scotland boss Walter Smith recently called for it to be reintroduced to allow his international players more time to recuperate from injury.

The Premier League, in principal, acknowledged they were looking into ways of imposing such a mini-break two years ago in a bid to pacify Premiership managers and players, only to compromise on their intentions.

Instead they brought forward the start of the 2005-06 season and finished it earlier to allow England manager Sven-Goran-Eriksson a month to prepare for the 2006 World Cup.

This only exacerbated the problem by adding to more fixture congestion in December. And a fat lot it did to England's World Cup hopes.

Traditionalists will cry it has always been this way since the introduction of Association Football in the 19th century and why change?

Premiership chairman could also play the traditionalist card, but let's face it, they are against a season break because their clubs benefit from increased revenue in this period.

Yet a break may not necessarily need to lead to a loss of revenue. Clubs could take advantage of a break in the sun to recuperate and partake in lucrative money-spinning tournaments while allowing injured players to convalesce.

Newcastle and Manchester United have enjoyed such trips abroad in the past and, Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp recently said Southampton once took part in a money-spinning friendly against Bayern Munich during a mini break.

But a winter break does not necessarily have to be over the Christmas holidays, although a fixture or two less would be appreciated by all concerned.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has long advocated a winter break and understands a chairman's concern over the loss of revenue but he has provided the most sensible solution to the problem yet.

He said : "The Christmas programme is great in this country; we get great crowds then but why not start a three-week ban on January 1 and use the whole of May when the weather is better?"

A sensible and common sense solution, but will it be applied? Don't hold your breath.