Jose Mourinho enjoys a good moan about fixture scheduling and the start of next season is certainly going to provide the Tottenham Hotspur boss with every opportunity to do so.
The Spurs players are expected to return to Hotspur Way on August 17 after a brief recharge on their holidays between the protracted last season and the next one.
However, the players will have only been back in training for less than three weeks when they will have to head off on international fixtures before the Premier League season has even begun.
Harry Kane & Co, for example, will be travelling to Iceland on September 5 with England in the Nations League and then making their way to Denmark on September 8 to play again.
Assuming that the players return to Tottenham for a recovery day the next afternoon and then only return to full training the next day, that means Mourinho will only have two days to fully prepare his players for their first game of the Premier League season if it is scheduled for the opening date of Saturday, September 12.
There is no resting up after that for Spurs as they begin their Europa League journey in the second qualifying round just days later on September 17.
If they are successful in Europe, Spurs will be playing matches every couple of days from then on in the Premier League and in Europe as the Europa League third qualifying round follows the following week on September 24.
Then the play-off round arrives on another week later on October 1. At least all of the qualifying rounds contain of just one leg.
Just when Mourinho might think he's about to get some time to work with his players, a particularly packed international break arrives.
England welcome Wales in a friendly during that break on Thursday, October 8, then Belgium in the Nations League on October 11 and then Denmark three days later.
Spurs will be hoping they are still in the Europa League at that point and with the group stages, the Premier League and the League Cup schedule yet to be announced - although hopefully not containing sides in Europe at that stage - all before yet another international break in November, Mourinho is going to have plenty of fixture gripes to get off his chest.
