Jamie Carragher has slammed England's decision to play a friendly against the Republic of Ireland during the latest international break, stating that differing priorities for domestic and national teams are resulting in the players being "treated like meat".
The former Liverpool favourite's comments come as the Three Lions wrap up their third and final game of the November international break against Iceland in the UEFA Nations League, completing a run of three games in the space of seven days.
It is the latest in a run of two-week-long pauses for the international game across the opening stages of an already condensed 2020-21 campaign, with several figures in Gareth Southgate's squad already playing multiple fixtures per week due to European as well as domestic commitments.
The fixture congestion has taken its toll on a host of players, with Liverpool's Joe Gomez one of several faces forced to withdraw from contention across the international break after picking up injuries thought to have been exacerbated by a relentless schedule.
Speaking at Wembley ahead of England's concluding match, Carragher - who featured in three major tournaments for the Three Lions during his international career between 1999 and 2010 - blasted the choice to add an extra match to the team's programme following the collapse of their original game against New Zealand last week.
The 42-year-old acknowledged that the balance between club and country remains a tough one to handle, with the compressed timeframe for fixtures on both levels creating problems for the other, echoing previous comments by Southgate on the matter.
"I think Gareth's come out on the front foot [about this issue]," Carragher told Sky Sports. "He's England manager, so he's going to do what's best for him.
"Club managers do what's best for them and they will be putting the pressure on certain players to maybe try and get out of this game. If I was a club manager or an England manager, I'd be doing exactly what both sets are.
"But I just think what this season has told us - [be it] null and void the league, Project Big Picture, five subs or international footballers - everybody just looks after themselves, they do what's right for them.
"Hence why England had a friendly, a joke of a friendly, against the Republic of Ireland. It's just nonsense. They play that game and again, no-one is giving up anything. The players have just been treated like meat."