Considering the focus that Ole has put on workrate, it'll be interesting to see how these figures fare up around the same point (around 4 games in) next season.
Workrate
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Poor showing from the CMs on the sprints. Would love to see similar rankings from rivals.
Those stats are completely meaningless unless you factor in minutes played.
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OK, sorry.
That basically works out to one lap around the track for each player.... over 45 minutes. It's not quite as drastic as it sounds. In fact, since we had the ball 52% of the time (I can only see the whole game, not just the first half), it's a really odd statistic. But they had 15 shots, 8 of which were on target, compared to our 7 shots and 1 on target. Everton made the most of their time; we did not.
Mins played after 4 games:
Shaw 360 mins
Pogba 354
Lindelof 302
Lukaku 293
Fred 256
Lingard 211
Sanchez 186
Rashford 122
So average distance covered per 90 mins is:
Lingard 11.43 km
Fred 11.4
Pogba 10.27
Shaw 9.85
Lukaku 9.12
Lindelof 9.11
(these figures match up fairly closely with the official CL stats, see below)
Sprints per 90 mins:
Rashford 26
Lingard 17
Sanchez 16.45
Lukaku 12
Shaw 11.25
Lindelof 6.56
(the team changed a lot during those first four PL games so most players got limited mins)
CL averages per 90 mins this season https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2019/statistics/round=2000980/players/index.html
Pogba 10.5 km
Lukaku 9.36
Fred 11.8
Pereira 11.8
Sanchez 9.9
Lindelof 9.1
Shaw 10.0
Martial 8.9
Dalot 10.8
McTominay 11.9
Lingard 11.7
Matic 11.4
Young 9.8
Jones 9.1
Rashford 10.2
Smalling 9.15
Valencia 9.8
--
(selected Liverpool)
Alexander-Arnold 10.1
Robertson 10.2
Wijnaldum 10.9
Firmino 11.4
Milner 12.2
Mane 10.6
Salah 10.0
(Spurs)
Kane 10.3
Son 10.3
Eriksen 12.2
Wanyama 12.1
Trippier 11.3
Aurier 10.4
Rose 10.7
Dele Alli 11.8
Davies 10.97
Winks 11.3
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People make too much out of distance covered stats.
It's pretty meaningless unless it's converted to 'per 90 minutes' or similar.
edit, whoops, missed a few posts sorry!
edit, whoops, missed a few posts sorry!
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I would start putting clauses in the players contracts something to do with minimum required distance covered per game since that is truly embarrassing.Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I was saying during Mourinho's time that this current squad is the laziest I have ever seen at United.
Depressing. Had such high hopes for Martial.
This, unfortunately.
makes you think that we were really going to buy Arnautovic
I think that was really in the works under Mourinho. He probably saw him as a good back-up to Lukaku. And in Mourinhos system running was not very relevant.
It would be interesting to see how much Lukaku and even Martial has upped their workrate under OGS compared to Mourinho though. At least Lukaku looks like he is really trying to do so even if he looks shot after a couple of sprints.
Apparently when people started tracking distance as a stat, there were clubs that put these performance incentives in to make players work harder. One included their goalkeeper, who was David James at the time. He used to jog from one side of the penalty box to the other when the ball was at the other end of the pitch to pad his stats! Was told this by someone working at ProZone at the time, although I've never seen proof of it!
I hearby declare that Lingard is our hardest worker being 2nd in distance and 3rd in sprints.
Our laziest player is probably Martial although the difference between him and Lukaku is fractional.
It’s easily Martial based on the stats. Lukaku is probably less expected to move about as much, especially when he is the focal point of the front players. Martial on the other hand should be up and down the flank like a train. No excuse. Should easily be covering one of the most in our team whenever he plays
I hearby declare that Lingard is our hardest worker being 2nd in distance and 3rd in sprints.
Our laziest player is probably Martial although the difference between him and Lukaku is fractional.
Full list of distances covered by top 6 forwards: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/bj8xnk/distance_covered_per_90_big_6_forwards_note/
Martial, feck me. Pretty sure I move more walking to, in and from the ground. The x axis is a little bit misleading, but even so.
Martial, feck me. Pretty sure I move more walking to, in and from the ground. The x axis is a little bit misleading, but even so.
Martial is a disgrace.
Once again you guys make too big of a deal about distance covered stats.
Sprints are more important regarding work rate. The level of intensity is closely correlated with the number of sprints per game.
Mata and Lingard are some o of the few players we have that makes run in order to get the ball and open up space for others. Sadly it doesn't seem to help us that much when they play.
Pogba is not as lazy as people make out
These two are practically static at times,people don't consider this is why Pogba often has to keep hold of the ball.
OMG so lazy Johnny Foreigner Pogba cover more distance then honest, hardworking, local lads Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, captain fantaspit, Luke Shaw and Danny Welbeck MK2? How that's even possible? Also how come out of our most 10 hardworking players only 2 are British? I thought that the British core would care about the club and they will keep running, running and running like the Duracell bunny.
I hearby declare that Lingard is our hardest worker being 2nd in distance and 3rd in sprints.
Our laziest player is probably Martial although the difference between him and Lukaku is fractional.
Honestly I don't give a feck about nationality. Also the last 10 should be kicked out of the club.
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I agree , it’s fine for someone like Lingard running around aimlessly but he might touch the ball once in 5/6 mins therefore rendering half the running pointless.
Once they've been through an Ole preseason, we should see a stark difference in work rate. I hope Martial is ready.
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If the list was sorted by sprints and distance instead of just distance then the only British players who would rank lower than Pogba are the CBs, Smalling and Jones. And old man Young is the only other British player apart from those two that would be in the bottom 10.
Also unless you have some radical new tactical ideas then kicking out every player who in the bottom 50% for distance ran will mean United never again have a CB who lasts more than one season.
But why would we do that when distance covered clearly impacts the number of sprints a player is able to make? Just goes to show that context should be taken into account when analysing stats. Pogba's nowhere near as lazy as the British media (and fans) would have you believe.
The relationship between distance covered and sprints works both ways. Currently the table shows both sets of data but is ordered to only reflect distance so a player like Fellaini who jogs around a lot is seen as more hardworking than Rashford who covers a bit less distance overall but does four times the number of sprints. You would order the table to take into account both to redress this bias.
Re: Pogba. He's erratic. Some games he works his socks off, some games he can't be bothered. The data in that table shows him as being a fairly lazy player in a squad which is it itself lazier than many others. In his defence he had a very busy summer winning the world cup and has played more minutes for United this season than anyone except De Gea, he's probably very tired. There's also the fact he blatantly stopped trying for Mourinho which is going to impact his stats, but that's hardly a thing to praise him for.
Oh I see, yeah you're right, that would give a more accurate picture.
I generally don't see him as a lazy player to be honest, he's not as hard working as someone like Lingard and he could probably apply himself slightly better but he doesn't appear lazy to me over the course of the game. He's constantly involved in physical duels and his style of play means we often see him carrying the ball up the field with a lung-busting run. When you look at his frame, it's not surprising he's unable to complete as many sprints as a smaller player such as Lingard. Yaya Toure often received similar complaints and he was very comparable to Pogba in terms of style and build. Neither are workhorses but I do believe labelling them as lazy is harsh.
Not the impression you give from that post.
And let's not get into the idiocy of comparing the distances covered for central defenders with central midfielders....
He's an advanced playmaker. It's not his job to chase the ball. Considering the 'quality' of our team we should have enough workhorses to do the job. If the likes of Jones, young, Welbeck and Co don't provide the leg work then why exactly do we keep them for? Surely not to defend or convert every chance into a goal. There are not good in either of those things
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With the odd exception (martial) it kind of seems like everybody is a bit low rather than individual players dragging the stats down. Or maybe we ran more in the champions league than we normally do? The main ones that stand out for me are Mata and Matic both of which i expected to be a lot lower (though I guess mata is quite good at staying mobile and i shouldn't be too surprised).