Tough?

[weybridgewanderer]

every team had 3 games in the week, are our players finding it more of a problem?

[Stranded]

Probably not.

[brendywendy]

Radcliffe comparison is daft.totally different fitness type.different muscle types.different training.shed be as oxf*rd after an hour and a half of high intensity sprints and turns as the boys would after a half marathon. And its got feck all to do with application or desire or passion. There are simply human limits to how much high intensity sprinting and turning you can do without fatigue setting in. And lol at the idea of a player being interviewed saying nothing,as daft as saying most of our players arent good enough. Just because you have formed some half arsed opinion doesnt mean its right or should be shared.

[agentrwrf]

I think the point is being missed here as usual. Joe Cole at the w/end said "It's hard" losing due to Torres not being fit. As we have proved level terms with LFC occasionally , then what 'tough' means is that your best players are not in form and your opposition is better than you. Which then suggests that we are playing teams which are 'tough' opposition and not that we are tired. However, back to the old chestnut of which teams in this division are the 'strongest', and then of course 'big Mac' refers to the amount of money that has been spent etc, but 'au contraire' 'Mr Mac' as Blackpool went up with 'not alot'! (In danger of sounding almost like 'Bucked Rogers'). I do however believe in our manager. As for our chairman, (trying not to change topic here),i can neither agree with his business model or disagree which really means a sort of middle ground feeling but in danger of becoming numb. However, there is always the clubs opinion that our players are actually quite good and the 'tough' games will then become 'easy' games. Either way, VFM is high compared to watching some so called 'premier league' games.

[M U R T Y]

Maybe Brian McD should have utilised his squad a bit more this week then. If players are finding it tough, and comments in the media suggest we were tired, then he should have called upon some of the fringe players to step up and show their worth.

This used to anger me with Coppell - always moaning that we had an away match after international break and the players were tired etc - yet he never changed the team around to accomodate!

Surely Noel Hunt could have started? Zurab? Williams? Antonio? All fresh but all still on the subs bench...

[T.R.O.L.I.]

Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and so on often play many games. Don't see their players complaining and they play at a much higher level.

DO YOU SEE?

The managers of said clubs complain about it often enough though!

[Rusty royal]

A lot of amateurs play 2 games in a weekend (I used to till I was 36) OK the level was is not so high but we never had pristine pitches to play on, plus the full back did not care if he broke your leg ( I have the scars to prove it). Yes it is tough to play 3 games in a week but that is what they sign up to do. Also some players are good at looking invisible during a game

[RoyalBlue]

Radcliffe comparison is daft.totally different fitness type.different muscle types.different training.shed be as oxf*rd after an hour and a half of high intensity sprints and turns as the boys would after a half marathon. And its got feck all to do with application or desire or passion. There are simply human limits to how much high intensity sprinting and turning you can do without fatigue setting in. And lol at the idea of a player being interviewed saying nothing,as daft as saying most of our players arent good enough. Just because you have formed some half arsed opinion doesnt mean its right or should be shared.

Alright, how about Eddie Izzard?! Now that was tough but he kept going.

Big deal, they are having to earn their money and lifestyle by having a tough time physically every so often. Given that those tough times also have to coincide with the tough times of players at other clubs, there is still a level playing field.

[loyalroyaldaz]

What a crock of shite. 3 games in a week, boo hoo, my heart bleeds.
Im sure they must cut down on the training a bit to allow for recovery so wtf is the problem.
What about us poor gits who pay to watch them three times in a week, now thats tough, do they spare a thought for us?

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Jesus this is bad even by team board standards.

No one is asking u to feel sorry for them. Yeah maybe busting ur back on a building site is tougher. But then those people don't have the talent or application to make it as a professional footballer.

There are very few people who get anywhere in this game without a huge amount of effort, look at Rooney, the most technically gifted player around and he's still had to work so hard.

I'd go as far as to say that the majority of pro footballers will have worked a lot harder in life to get where they are than ur average builder.

Rah rah rah

[Royal Lady]

They're far too cosseted these days. It's like this "not match fit" bollox we keep hearing - you don't get "match fit" unless you play some bloddy matches. Get Zurab a game for heaven's sake!

They have all these trainers, dieticians and whatnot, they're paid mega bucks and the managers complain that they've had to play 3 matches in a week. And anyway, it's not EVERY week. They need to man up and grow a pair.

[brendywendy]

Its not about cosseting,or pampering. He just said 3 games in a week is hard,and maybe thats why they underperformed at the weekend. All this nonsense being aimed at them is arse water. Its not about growing a pair or manning up. Could usain bolt run 5 full tilt 100 meters in a week.no.
'but its only 10 seconds work,what a gay,needs to man up' bollox!

[prostak]

They're far too cosseted these days [...]

They have all these trainers, dieticians and whatnot, they're paid mega bucks and the managers complain that they've had to play 3 matches in a week. And anyway, it's not EVERY week. They need to man up and grow a pair.

Except they don't, not all of them. Think about the career of a 4th division journeyman - over by 35 at best then onto some form of low-skilled employment and premature arthritis or similar muscular and osseous complaints. And nobody is rushing to organise a benefit concert for them, are they..?

[Stranded]

They're far too cosseted these days. It's like this "not match fit" bollox we keep hearing - you don't get "match fit" unless you play some bloddy matches. Get Zurab a game for heaven's sake!

They have all these trainers, dieticians and whatnot, they're paid mega bucks and the managers complain that they've had to play 3 matches in a week. And anyway, it's not EVERY week. They need to man up and grow a pair.

But if we played Zurab and he was clearly not match fit and was roasted by a Barnsley striker for their winner then he and the management would get absolutely slated for playing him.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

TBF some of the fit defenders get a roasting, can't do any worse.

[agentrwrf]

Yeah, but it wasn't 'tough' when we went up with 106. Come on, its not 'tiredness' or 'tough', it's just that we weren't good enough on the day. If you win 3 games in the week ,then does the word 'easy' enter into the 'colloquial tripe' that is normally reported. No, just that the players are enjoying their football. Enuff said.

[Royal Lady]

They're far too cosseted these days [...]

They have all these trainers, dieticians and whatnot, they're paid mega bucks and the managers complain that they've had to play 3 matches in a week. And anyway, it's not EVERY week. They need to man up and grow a pair.

Except they don't, not all of them. Think about the career of a 4th division journeyman - over by 35 at best then onto some form of low-skilled employment and premature arthritis or similar muscular and osseous complaints. And nobody is rushing to organise a benefit concert for them, are they..?

I wasn't talking about 4th division journeymen, I was talking more about our players and those in the top two divisions really. Didn't make myself clear though, so I'll apologise.

[brendywendy]

But i thought alot of our players werent good enough to be lower division journeymen anyway

[Magnus]

[Snowball]

Eddie Izzard running loadsa marathons, while admirable isn't loads of marathons[i] run at his personal best time

I've run about a dozen marathons, my best being 3:03 at age 45. I could have run a lot of marathons at say 3:50-4:20 as
they weren't (relatively speaking) much of a strain I couldn't run TWO "3:03s", never mind in the same week, but in the same MONTH
(well maybe once, just about, but then I'd've been furcked for twelve months.

There's a total difference between doing stuff at 99-100% and coasting through.



Top athletes are far more "highly-tuned" these days, and always "on the edge of breaking down".

They are fitter, sharper and the game is faster than ever before. They are genuinely under stress
if they play to the max every game. I heard recently about the increased power in the tackle,
this in rugby. Both players are bigger, tougher AND faster so the collisions can contain up to 8 times the force.

This was looking at changes in physiques etc over 20 years.


The mental strain, the knocks carried, DO accumulate. Personally, I think the trick is to avoid "heavy" full-contact
stuff in training, and take lots of rest (when playing three a week)

Also, though the old pitches were not great, they were (mostly) SOFTER.

I think the stresses on the modern footballer is partly due to BETTER (harder) pitches.