United players speed test

Rossa · Aug 6, 2019

People saying top speed doesn't matter are as clueless as those thinking it is the most important attribute of a footballer. If you play counter attacking football, top speed is very important. If the defense keeps a high line, you need defenders with a high top speed.

Shaw easily outpaced Salah in a fairly long footrace. I think most would have thought that Salah was faster, but Shaw wasn't even flat out. Smalling has warded off quite a few attacks because of his top speed. Bailly outpaced Aubameyang in a foot race.

In Ferguson's days, we launched quite a few attacks from deep in our own pitch where Giggs, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez, Park would simply outpace the opposition. We are talking 60 yard runs, if not more.

However, looking at that list, I can think Shaw, Pogba and Bailly should clearly be much higher up the list. I am surprised by Dalot. He is quite slow off the mark it seems, and I have seldom seen him bust his lungs on a longer run, so that was surprising. Lukaku has great top speed; I'm surprised some thought otherwise. Smalling is rapid, James and Rashford are obviously rapid. Martial is disappointing, but when was the last time he looked fast? Young does in fact look faster!

Rossa · Aug 6, 2019

Snow said:
Training stats are such bullshit in a vaccum, players have been gaming them for years by making meaningless sprints during training to pump their numbers etc. I know a few managers that had this equipment when they were training and now don't put too much stock into them as managers as far these kind of stats. Unless they are specifically measuring sprints over 40m or whatever there's not much point discussing this.

Arsenal used to publish their fastest 40m runners. Bellerin was the first to beat Walcott, I believe.

Infra-red · Aug 6, 2019

Our rapid XI, according to those stats:

De Gea

Dalot Smalling Jones Young

Chong Gomes Pogba James

Lukaku Rashford

Tom Cato · Aug 6, 2019

TheSwedeFromSweden said:
1. Diogo Dalot - 36,43 km/h.
2. Romelu Lukaku - 36,25.
3. Tahith Chong - 36.
4. Marcus Rashford - 35,71.
5. Daniel James - 35,53.
6. Chris Smalling - 35,28.
7. Ashley Young - 34,85.
8. Jesse Lingard - 34,38.
9. Anthony Martial - 34,24.
10. Phil Jones - 34.09.
11. Mason Greenwood - 34,02.
12. Aron Wan-Bissaka - 33,91.
13. Victor Nilsson Lindelöf - 33.62.
14. Axel Tuanzebe - 33,55.
15. Angel Gomes - 33,52.
16. Paul Pogba - 33,41.
17. Eric Bailly - 33,16.
18. Andreas Pereira - 33.12.
19. Marcos Rojo - 32.9.
20. James Garner - 32,69.
21. Scott McTominay - 32,51.
22. Nemanja Matic - 32,26.
23. Juan Mata - 31,79.
24. Luke Shaw - 31,03.

A bit surprising right?

I dont know what distance this was over, but the Fifa world record is 37 km/h set by Arjen Robben in 2017. Kylian Mbappe has a top pace at 36 km/h, same as Daniel James who has also clocked in at 36 km/h.

Noteworthy: Acceleration and top speed are not the same things. Daniel James has by far the best acceleration on this team.

To further complicate the validity of the above measurements: Here are the fastest footballers in 2018:

#1. Gareth Bale (Real Madrid): 36.9 kph
#2. Orlando Berrio (Flamengo): 36 kph
#3. Kylian Mbappe (PSG): 36 kph
#4. Inaki Williams (Athletic Bilbao): 35.71 kph
#5. Theo Walcott (Everton): 35.7 kph
#6. Leroy Sane (Manchester City): 35.48 kph
#7. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City): 35.44 kph
#8. Patrick van Aanholt (Crystal Palace): 35.42 kph
#9. Moussa Sissoko (Tottenham): 35.33 kph
#10. Karim Bellarabi (Bayer Leverkusen): 35.27 kph

According to this, Manchester United have 6 of the top10 worlds fastest footballers in the squad. Which means: That someone got the GPS measurements wrong.

Romelu Lukaku is not faster than Christiano Ronaldo who clocked in at 34 km/h in the 2018 World Cup, let's leave it at that. Even in free fall.

crossy1686 · Aug 6, 2019

I think people are reading far too much into a one off speed test taken on a random day any of them could have been suffering form a poor nights sleep or the shits.

Nick7 · Aug 6, 2019

Tom Cato said:
I dont know what distance this was over, but the Fifa world record is 37 km/h set by Arjen Robben in 2017. Kylian Mbappe has a top pace at 36 km/h, same as Daniel James who has also clocked in at 36 km/h.

Noteworthy: Acceleration and top speed are not the same things. Daniel James has by far the best acceleration on this team.

To further complicate the validity of the above measurements: Here are the fastest footballers in 2018:

#1. Gareth Bale (Real Madrid): 36.9 kph

#2. Orlando Berrio (Flamengo): 36 kph

#3. Kylian Mbappe (PSG): 36 kph

#4. Inaki Williams (Athletic Bilbao): 35.71 kph

#5. Theo Walcott (Everton): 35.7 kph

#6. Leroy Sane (Manchester City): 35.48 kph

#7. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City): 35.44 kph

#8. Patrick van Aanholt (Crystal Palace): 35.42 kph

#9. Moussa Sissoko (Tottenham): 35.33 kph

#10. Karim Bellarabi (Bayer Leverkusen): 35.27 kph

According to this, Manchester United have 6 of the top10 worlds fastest footballers in the squad. Which means: That someone got the GPS measurements wrong.

Romelu Lukaku is not faster than Christiano Ronaldo who clocked in at 34 km/h in the 2018 World Cup, let's leave it at that. Even in free fall.

Are they in game stats or in training? Because that could cause the discrepancy. In a game, you're less likely to hit your actual top speed, because there isn't that many chances to do it, before getting to/ahead of the ball. If you have a free field in front of you in training, you can.

Tom Cato · Aug 6, 2019

Nick7 said:
Are they in game stats or in training? Because that could cause the discrepancy. In a game, you're less likely to hit your actual top speed, because there isn't that many chances to do it, before getting to/ahead of the ball. If you have a free field in front of you in training, you can.

I don't know, but one assumes game pace. I'm trying to find some reliable stat overviews because I just read an article clocking Bale at 39 km/h. For reference Usain Bolt clocked 44.72 km/h when he set his world record at 9.58 for the 100m dash. The speed in the article attributed to Bale at 39 km/h over 100m gives him a time of 9.23 if he finishes this superhuman effort. Which of course is nearly impossible.

For reference, a 100m run below 10.0 means you run 100m at an avg speed of 36.36 km/h. Meaning a top speed of 36 km/h or greater over 30-60 meters is ridiculously fast for a non-sprinter.

tl;dr many numbers - need better and more accurate sources for statistics - Manchester United players are not THAT fast.

Nick7 · Aug 6, 2019

Tom Cato said:
I don't know, but one assumes game pace.

Yeah, that causes the difference. If you got a hold of those players speed stats for training, I would assume it's all faster than the in game pace. Simply because of the more controlled conditions.

Infra-red · Aug 6, 2019

Tom Cato said:
I dont know what distance this was over, but the Fifa world record is 37 km/h set by Arjen Robben in 2017. Kylian Mbappe has a top pace at 36 km/h, same as Daniel James who has also clocked in at 36 km/h.

Noteworthy: Acceleration and top speed are not the same things. Daniel James has by far the best acceleration on this team.

To further complicate the validity of the above measurements: Here are the fastest footballers in 2018:

#1. Gareth Bale (Real Madrid): 36.9 kph

#2. Orlando Berrio (Flamengo): 36 kph

#3. Kylian Mbappe (PSG): 36 kph

#4. Inaki Williams (Athletic Bilbao): 35.71 kph

#5. Theo Walcott (Everton): 35.7 kph

#6. Leroy Sane (Manchester City): 35.48 kph

#7. Jamie Vardy (Leicester City): 35.44 kph

#8. Patrick van Aanholt (Crystal Palace): 35.42 kph

#9. Moussa Sissoko (Tottenham): 35.33 kph

#10. Karim Bellarabi (Bayer Leverkusen): 35.27 kph

According to this, Manchester United have 6 of the top10 worlds fastest footballers in the squad. Which means: That someone got the GPS measurements wrong.

Romelu Lukaku is not faster than Christiano Ronaldo who clocked in at 34 km/h in the 2018 World Cup, let's leave it at that. Even in free fall.

The statistics you cite were taken in-game, while the stats leaked by Lukaku were complied during a training session, where the players may have been asked to carry out speed drills etc that wouldn't ordinarily be replicated in a real match (eg a flat-out 70m sprint in a straight line without a ball). This might explain why there is some disparity between the results and why our players appear to be among the fastest in the world.

Tom Cato · Aug 6, 2019

Nick7 said:
Yeah, that causes the difference. If you got a hold of those players speed stats for training, I would assume it's all faster than the in game pace. Simply because of the more controlled conditions.

Really depends on the sitaution, but I don't believe for a second that Romelu Lukaku is faster in a training sprin than Christiano Ronaldo is sprinting up the pitch looking for a ball.

Infra-red · Aug 6, 2019

For anyone who cares about such things, Bolt averaged 44.72kmph between 60m & 80m in his world record 9.58-second 100m final in Berlin in 2009.

Nick7 · Aug 6, 2019

Tom Cato said:
Really depends on the sitaution, but I don't believe for a second that Romelu Lukaku is faster in a training sprin than Christiano Ronaldo is sprinting up the pitch looking for a ball.

Ok. But Ronaldo is faster in a training sprint that an in game sprint. There's not enough space or need on the pitch for him to actually hit his top speed.

Real Madras · Aug 6, 2019

Dam Dalot is rapid. To bad he will be benched next season.

11101 · Aug 6, 2019

Infra-red said:
For anyone who cares about such things, Bolt averaged 44.72kmph between 60m & 80m in his world record 9.58-second 100m final in Berlin in 2009.

From 10-20m he clocked 36.4km/h, enough to match any footballer there is. He's accelerating hard up to 50m then it tapers off and at 70m he begins to slow again.

It's highly unlikely the club did these tests on a real running track. It's probably GPS data from their training bibs or maybe an indoor/astro run to 50m or so. No way the club would risk hamstrings by making them sprint out to 100m.

broccoli · Aug 6, 2019

Not very surprising from a biometrics perspective, I'm sure.

Halftrack · Aug 6, 2019

MVBDX said:
Dude, it's not about the number anymore, it's about the excuse he made, I said we take that "70%" for "taking it easy", but as @Halftrack mentioned it's like he was supposed to take it easy, yet he went close to fullspeed for some reason.

If he was injured and he took it easy as well he wouldn't be getting near those numbers, he'd record a way way lower speed, not close to his fullspeed. You're the sort of person who gets a broken product yet leaves a 5 star review, one of those corporate apologists, just because.

He may have pushed himself harder, but as someone else pointed out, that final bit of speed (or strength) takes a lot of effort, so 70% effort does not necessarily equal 70% of youractual top speed. It's not a linear scale.

You seem intent on making Shaw out to be some filthy liar based on the assumption that the 70% was meant literally, but you're the only one (including the coaches and Shaw) making that assumption. Everyone else understands that most can't accurately measure their effort in percentages of max, and as such recognises that the coaches by 70% meant "don't go flat out."

RedDevilCanuck · Aug 7, 2019

People saying Bailly is slow. Unbelievable.

Dude is only here because he is stupidly fast and quick over short distances.

Do you think he us here because of positioning?

Watch games. this list doesnt say anything. Bailly is one of the fastest and quickest defenders out there.

tenpoless · Aug 7, 2019

Shaw slower than Mata during training?

Why am I not surprised. Probably spent half of the training sessions jogging.

mariachi-19 · Aug 7, 2019

Rossa said:
People saying top speed doesn't matter are as clueless as those thinking it is the most important attribute of a footballer. If you play counter attacking football, top speed is very important. If the defense keeps a high line, you need defenders with a high top speed.

Shaw easily outpaced Salah in a fairly long footrace. I think most would have thought that Salah was faster, but Shaw wasn't even flat out. Smalling has warded off quite a few attacks because of his top speed. Bailly outpaced Aubameyang in a foot race.

In Ferguson's days, we launched quite a few attacks from deep in our own pitch where Giggs, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez, Park would simply outpace the opposition. We are talking 60 yard runs, if not more.

However, looking at that list, I can think Shaw, Pogba and Bailly should clearly be much higher up the list. I am surprised by Dalot. He is quite slow off the mark it seems, and I have seldom seen him bust his lungs on a longer run, so that was surprising. Lukaku has great top speed; I'm surprised some thought otherwise. Smalling is rapid, James and Rashford are obviously rapid. Martial is disappointing, but when was the last time he looked fast? Young does in fact look faster!

How many times do you think that a player in a single season will hit top speed? I'd say, less than 10. Most sprints for a footballer would be between 10-20 meters even on the counter.

At the end of the day, you can have all the top speed in the world, but if it takes you a second slower to get to 75% of max compared to the player beside you, its not worth a pinch of shit because by the time you up there, he's already at the ball. No different to how touch works. Your ability to have time on the ball is the most important attribute any footballer can have. It means you're not rushed to make decisions and your execution can be far more precise.

United players speed test

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Quite dreamy - blue eyes, blond hair, tanned skin

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