There’s nothing wrong with playing on a Wednesday night and playing at 12:30 on a Saturday. It’s happened for decades and nobody has ever even thought it was an issue for a single second until those two wankers Olly Smeagol and Mary Kloppins had their moans about it this season.
Two full days between game days is absolutely fine.
No different to playing Thursday night in the EL and Sunday at 12:00 or 13:30, which also happens all the time.
This has never been thought of, let alone discussed, by managers or fans ever before those two clowns brought it up earlier this season.
Players come back from international duty from South America on Thursday afternoons sometimes and play, and play well, on the Saturday.
Very often in team sports it’s the recovery after the second game in close succession that is the most important, not the recovery between the first and second games. It’s been talked about for years in rugby league when they play the Good Friday and Easter Monday fixtures. Managers and fitness coaches have found that the most important gap needed for recovery is the gap between the Easter Monday game and the next game after that.
(Sorry to always bring up rugby league but there is far more fitness discussion in that sport than there is in football, football pundits are too obsessed with talking shit so you don’t get good insight into this sort of thing in footy) Once, Sam Tomkins played two games in two days, one for England and one for Wigan. I remember Anthony Watmaugh playing for Queensland one day and Manly the day after once over in Aus as well. And in both instances, the coaches and players we’re fine with it as long as the recovery after the two games was sufficient because that’s the most important recovery period.
So if City play on a Wednesday night, then it’s actually beneficial to play in an early Saturday kick off ahead of the next fixture, as there is a greater recovery time between the Saturday morning and the next game.