• Löw’s comments come after Sterling was rested by England • Germany’s 33-game unbeaten run ended by Poland • Löw’s side face Republic of Ireland on Tuesday • Martin O’Neill calls on Republic of Ireland to have a go

Less than 24 hours after Roy Hodgson said Raheem Sterling was too tired to play for England, the Germany manager, Joachim Löw, has claimed that his squad are playing too much club football and were not allowed enough rest following their World Cup triumph in July.

Julian Draxler, who is expected to replace Cristoph Kramer for Germany’s game against the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday night, told Löw before Saturday’s game against Poland that he did not feel fit enough to play the entire 90 minutes. He replaced Kramer in the second-half of the 2-0 defeat, while Toni Kroos complained afterwards about the schedule being “clearly too full”.

“The load on players is too high,” Löw said. “The high demands on teams in national leagues and of course the Champions League – it’s too much. If you look at the players, they need more of a break. Some players only get as little as three weeks after a major tournament and it’s straight back to the grind. Many of the players who are with us now, if you analyse their situation they have too short a break before they are reintegrated into their clubs in pre-season. It’s simply not enough.

“Maybe it doesn’t make a difference over one particular season but it certainly does over several. I agree with Toni Kroos: some of my players play too much.” Löw is likely to make only one change for the visit of Ireland with Kramer suffering from a stomach problem.

Löw also warned his players they have gone from hunter to prey since winning the World Cup.

Germany head into Tuesday’s match having surrendered a 33-game unbeaten run in qualifiers with a 2-0 defeat in Poland on Saturday, a result which followed a friendly loss to Argentina and a narrow Group D victory over Scotland.

But while the manager insists the weight of success is not a burden for his team, he admits the label does serve to inspire whoever they come up against.

Löw said: “The difficulties we are experiencing at the moment are of a type that we have experienced many times before. But generally speaking, I don’t think the position now is any more difficult than it’s always been.

“We used to be the hunter; now we are the prey. We know that teams like Scotland will play with incredible motivation against us – but that was true even after [the World Cup in] 2010 and [Euro] 2012.

“We know the situation, we know how to get by it, but it’s no different now than it used to be.”

Germany remain overwhelming favourites to top the group and will expect to right the wrongs of Warsaw in comprehensive style against an Ireland team which has collected maximum points from a trip to Georgia and a 7-0 demolition of Gibraltar.

Löw said: “If you ask me what is the mood like now, fury is the wrong word, anger is the wrong word. But what you can feel is some kind of determination, that we really badly want these three points against Ireland.

“But there is no incredible disappointment in the team. That would be wrong to say.

“We have seen both the Irish games and have analysed them, and we can expect some sort of copy of Poland. There’s nothing new to us. The Irish are good fighters, they have commitment and fantastic fighting spirit, and they know how to defend.

“They are a very well organised team, but at the same time, they have excellent players, like Robbie Keane, who is very experienced and has an eye for goal, Aiden McGeady, James McClean and other players who come from the wings and are very good at dribbling around their opponents.

“Like Poland, they are very fast on the counter, coming from the wings and putting dangerous crosses in.

“They come to Germany with self-confidence and with three teams being able to qualify from this group, they are in with a more than reasonable chance of actually making it to France.”

Much of the concern in Germany over the current team surrounds the full-backs with Philipp Lahm’s international retirement in particular leaving a gaping hole at the back, and the youngsters Erik Durm and Antonio Rüdiger have found themselves under intense scrutiny.

But Löw said: “Philipp Lahm played in the position for many, many years and he showed world class both on the right and on the left. It was obvious it would be difficult to replace somebody like him on a one-to-one basis. That is a fantasy.”