KARL Robinson says it makes sense for Sky Bet League One to have a complete break on some international weekends.

Tonight is the final set of fixtures in this round of World Cup qualifying, before England’s domestic divisions resume on Friday.

Eight League One games were postponed due to international call-ups last weekend, including Oxford United’s trip to Sunderland.

The same number of matches were called off in the previous round of World Cup qualifying fixtures at the start of last month, yet it remains only the Premier League and Sky Bet Championship who do not play.

Read also: Karl Robinson has his say on B teams in the EFL

Every blank weekend would mean an extra round of midweek fixtures, but Robinson feels last season’s Covid-condensed calendar showed teams could manage.

“I don’t see why we can’t say an international break is a complete break in League One and even League Two,” the U’s head coach said.

“We’ve learnt an awful lot about what players can and can’t do and we’ve seen how we can condense a Football League season into less than what we’ll have this year.

“It just doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense.

“The Championship cope wonderfully well with it, I can’t foresee why we couldn’t.

“We don’t have to do every single one, but at least you know, rather than having to plan and things being called off.

“We’ve seen how we reduced the season by two months last season.

“We got through it okay, so all you’re doing is putting one or two more midweek games in and we wouldn’t have an issue with that.”

United’s trip to Sunderland was expected to be called off long before it was formally postponed eight days before the game.

Read also: Gavin Whyte and Marcus McGuane back in training after Covid isolation

That was due to call-ups in the hosts’ camp, with Northern Ireland international Gavin Whyte the only U’s player selected for international duty in this round of matches.

It means United are in the middle of an 11-day gap between games, which ends when they host Plymouth Argyle on Saturday.

The U’s faced a number of similar breaks last season, in between relentless runs of fixtures, with several matches called off at short notice due to Covid.

That came after the campaign began five weeks later than normal because of the pandemic.

The English Football League increased the maximum number of substitutions to five per team for each match last season, but it is now back to three.

Robinson has previously spoken out against this change and claims it would help clubs deal with more midweek fixtures down the line.

He said: “Our league looks a bit distorted, but then on top of that (the postponements) we should have kept five subs, which everyone was equally happy with.

“You don’t mind playing Saturday-Tuesday if you can change 50 per cent of your team during the game.”