Former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Jamie O’Hara has admitted to talkSPORT that he was never a fan of flying to games during his time as a player.
O’Hara, who came through the Spurs academy setup first got his chance under Juande Ramos and played fairly regularly for the Lilywhites in the second half of the 2007-08 season as well as during the 2008-09 campaign (transfermarkt).
During that time, he was involved in a number Europa League games, which involved flying to far-flung corners of Europe for a Thursday night fixture before flying back to the UK for a Premier League game on the weekend.
The former Spurs star admitted that he felt tired and jet-lagged even after just a couple of hours on an aeroplane:
✈️ “I was never a big fan of flying.”
? “If you get a train or coach you can put your feet up and relax.”
? “Flying is very quick and it all just seems very rushed.”@MrJamieOHara1 explains why he would never want to flying to matches when he was a player. pic.twitter.com/TNIOiGI9it
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) June 22, 2020
Spurs Web Opinion
The fact that we were playing on a Thursday instead of Wednesday or a Tuesday during that time made the recovery even more difficult as the players generally had no time to prepare for the weekend game.
This is one of the reasons I would prefer us to miss out on Europe all together if we fail to qualify for the Champions League. Playing in the Europe League will do our prospects next season more harm than good.