The diet wasn’t great under Fergie. I shudder to think how it was under 3 managers who couldn’t control the players.
Fitness
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
- Start date
-
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.
Remember how Pep basically told Nasri to feck off because he was overweight ?
Think Yaya a club legend was benched because he wasn’t prepared to put the extra miles like Silva and Aguero.
And he did it at his arrival, no mercy shown. Ole will hopefully have that approach in the summer, whoever comes back overweight should be put to hell and made to work to earn his trust back.
No more excuses the start of next season.
Ole, the coaches and our players have plenty more than enough time to prepare -- pre-season!
Ole, the coaches and our players have plenty more than enough time to prepare -- pre-season!
Had enough of that fecking word.
Their fitness will be absolutely fine. It's just people looking for another easy excuse.
This team needs a pre-season under Ole to become the team he wants them to become. The lads were gassed in the second half.
I sometimes think that Mourinho fecked up with this team, making them lose in every aspect of the game. This included. Should be different come next season, otherwise I'm wrong and that should mean these players dont have what it takes.
Something needs to be done in that aspect ffs. It cant be that our players are not fit and not taking care of their diet. We most likely have all the support a player needs so let's be tough on that one as well.
Not an excuse but looks like one factor to consider.
When compared to you and I then yeah of course.
Remember though this is coming from a manager who didn't want to receive or chase the ball as the team with the ball was 'scared'
Our fitness in comparison to other teams was and is still abysmal because the players were not trained that way and it is showing. Do you seriously think they are running less than other teams because they are lazy?
It's clear fitness is a big issue. Partly down to training and conditions but partly down to the type of players also.
Lukaku was great for the first half an hour but he honestly looked like he couldn't breath at one point. His body just isn't designed for a high intensity game. (Unless he's on Peps special juice). Same with Matic and Mata.
This isn't a post against these players as I actually like all 3 of them. Just an observation that I don't think they can play high pressing, high intensity football for long periods of time. Look at the body shapes of Bernado silva, Aguero, Mane, Salah, Keita, Fernandinho, Sterling and Kante etc. They are built like long distance runners. There will always be exceptions to this, but as a rule if you want to play that style, footballing ability is only 50% or less of the battle and physical attributes are massively important.
Is Wijnaldum better at football than Matic? No.
Is Henderson better at football then Pogba? No
Is Mahrez better at football than Mata? No
They have legs though and that's what matters if you want to play that style. At the moment we only have Rashford, Herrera, Lingard and Mctom as the midfielders and attackers that are able to cope with I from a physical point of view.
Lukaku was great for the first half an hour but he honestly looked like he couldn't breath at one point. His body just isn't designed for a high intensity game. (Unless he's on Peps special juice). Same with Matic and Mata.
This isn't a post against these players as I actually like all 3 of them. Just an observation that I don't think they can play high pressing, high intensity football for long periods of time. Look at the body shapes of Bernado silva, Aguero, Mane, Salah, Keita, Fernandinho, Sterling and Kante etc. They are built like long distance runners. There will always be exceptions to this, but as a rule if you want to play that style, footballing ability is only 50% or less of the battle and physical attributes are massively important.
Is Wijnaldum better at football than Matic? No.
Is Henderson better at football then Pogba? No
Is Mahrez better at football than Mata? No
They have legs though and that's what matters if you want to play that style. At the moment we only have Rashford, Herrera, Lingard and Mctom as the midfielders and attackers that are able to cope with I from a physical point of view.
We have gone full circle now with these players. First they were not good enough. Then there were some bad attitudes in the squad. Now its that they are not fit enough. How about we just realize every scenario comes back to the players. Kick them all out and let's start again. Build a team from scratch and start again.
I disagree. I can easily see a difference between LVG's, Mourinhos and OGS' styles. OGS definetly want us to press more but players run out of steam after 40 minutes.
Last edited:
You must have the memory of a goldfish, we started the season this way and in the exact same manner dropped off after 20-30 minutes.
Further, people spent most of this season complaining that we didn't work on technical aspects and only fitness because Jose only wanted runners. Now we're to believe Jose of all managers didn't train fitness?
They definitely looked a bit knackered in that second half yesterday. If they kept up their earlier intensity I reckon we'd have got a second.
Fitness has been an issue for a long while but I don't think it's simply solved by just upping training.
It's the mentality of the club itself that breeds this lax attitude to players getting overweight and lacking sharpness. We're a soft club who don't want to rock the boat with players now. Ole needs to be strong with the players and if they resist we should be big enough to let them go and coast elsewhere.
It's the mentality of the club itself that breeds this lax attitude to players getting overweight and lacking sharpness. We're a soft club who don't want to rock the boat with players now. Ole needs to be strong with the players and if they resist we should be big enough to let them go and coast elsewhere.
Because that is feasible.
It's mainly shortsighted. All of these things from player purchase/improvement, dressing room culture to fitness are directly linked to management and the reason why managers are paid a lot. It's highly unlikely for a group of +20 young men coming from almost as many different clubs to strangely all have the same tactical, mental and fitness deficiencies that aren't linked to something or someone that they have in common.
Now, what is the thing that they have in common?
Not being talented or committed enough?
Exactly. One of the reason why the teams are under few managers always work hard, no matter whom they manage.
All of them? Here is the thing, being fit won't make the team successful because there is a lack of quality anyway but when we talk about fitness, it's worth remembering that in one summer(2016), the team went from top third among PL teams in terms of distance covered and sprints, to bottom third in the league. Logic would dictate that the one change that has a direct influence on training was the source of the difference.
That is a bingo.
Not all of them off course.
I would suggest that the change was more to do with the change in tactics and the move away from a high up field press.
It took liverpools players time to adapt to the increased fitness demands at the start of Kloop's tenure which was manifested in the number of hamstring injuries in the early days.
Off course fitness is not the major factor atm but some of our players are not fit enough to press for a full game.
There is not a single player there I would be desperate to keep as a fan. The only ones I have any affinity towards are Lindelof, De Gea, and Herrera.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Worth also noting how intense the last month has been, and not just for us. Midweek matches that are crucial every week, meaning less recovery and rest.
Chelsea, Spurs, city and arsenal have all looked knackered these past few weeks too.
Chelsea, Spurs, city and arsenal have all looked knackered these past few weeks too.
From a distance covered point of view the likes of Mata and Matic are more than comparable with their Liverpool/City counterparts (CL stats per 90m: Mata 14.2km vs Salah 11.1km vs Bernardo 12.8km / Matic 12.7km vs Henderson 12.8km vs Fernandinho 11.8km). Mata's are a little skewed due to sub appearances but his work ethic shouldn't be a question.
However the same cannot be said of Martial, Lukaku and Pogba; who all cover less distance than their counterparts (CL stats per 90m: Martial 9.9km vs Mane 11.8km vs Sterling 11.4km / Lukaku 10km vs Firmino 12.7km vs Aguero 10.8km / Pogba 11.7km vs Milner 13.5km vs De Bruyne 13.1km.
It's worth noting however that all these averages from United across the board this season have jumped staggeringly under Solskjaer:
Martial CL average on 17th December - 8.9km
Martial average today - 9.9km
Lukaku CL average on 17th December - 9.1km
Lukaku average today - 10km
Pogba CL average on 17th December - 10.5km
Pogba CL average today - 11.7km
Lingard CL average on 17th December - 11.7km
Lingard CL average today - 13.1km
Fred CL average on 17th December - 11.8klm
Fred CL average today - 13.1km
Young CL average on 17th December - 9.8km
Young CL average today - 10.9km
Given that the previous averages were based on 6 CL games and the new averages are based on 10 CL games then to improve these stats by this margin (c. 10%) has taken a huge improvement.
This shows the work that Solskjaer is doing but it's going to take far more than 4 months to get us where we need to be.
Seperate to this though we also have players who struggle to properly close the opposition down aggressively. Covering distance is great but if you stop when you're 3 yards away from the opposition, rather than put in an actual tackle then the distance covered isn't that helpful when you aren't in possession. This imbalance is down to squad composition. The likes of Matic, Pogba, Lukaku, Mata and Martial don't actually put in tackles or chase down opposition players with intent. They all give our opponents space to pick out a pass, which hurts us regularly.
Against the top teams that play our from the back the main way to counter them is to press their defenders. Liverpool have beaten pretty much every top team in Europe by adopting this approach. However it requires pretty much every outfield player outside of your centre backs to aggressively press. Watching us under Ole I believe you can tell he wants us to do this, but it's impossible with only 6 players who fit this profile in Herrera, Fred, McT, Lingard, Rashford, Shaw. Young/Sanchez try but their legs have gone (and most of the others can't do it for 90 mins... yet).
If this is our style which I believe it should be then we obviously have some huge questions as we have 5 players who are all very frequent fixtures in our XI (who we paid £300m out for) who aren't compatible with this style. Not only that but it's a style that has a prerequisite of all players following as if one doesn't then it creates a simply opportunity for the opponents to play through the lines.
We also pressed against Spurs in first half in Aug this season before getting destroyed in second half and losing 3-0 so yeah, I don't see any kind of difference tbh.
Good reply and good post
The info in there is really interesting and pretty much backs up what I was thinking.I don't question the work rate of players like Mata or Matic at all (Even Lukaku) I still don't think they're physically able though. I could go out there and run 15K but the intensity would still be nowhere near the same as a Mane or Salah running 12K. It's knowing when to run and running with a purpose when you go.
I agree that you can see the style Ole wants and in patches we look great. I just hope he gets 4 or 5 new players that suit the new strategy and compliment the 4 or 5 we already have.
It is true Mourinho wanted us to play a high pressing style as well. I just think he gave up too quickly and that might have resulted in him losing the dressing room completely because I think a lot of the players went into this session expecting us to play more agressive. You could argue that OGS has done the same mistake however I am going to give him a preseason before I decide if he has given up on his promise about us playing more agressive football
its funny. you give me 1/10th of the money these buggers in our club are earning and i'll work my a$$ off.
Where are those stats coming from?
Why didn't we realise there was a fitness problem when mourinho was here? We didn't actually because we were conserving energy and usually had to make comeback after falling behind.
Agreed - sprints are far more physically intensive and all data shows we're significantly behind our rivals in sprints per match.Good reply and good post
I don't question the work rate of players like Mata or Matic at all (Even Lukaku) I still don't think they're physically able though. I could go out there and run 15K but the intensity would still be nowhere near the same as a Mane or Salah running 12K. It's knowing when to run and running with a purpose when you go.
I agree that you can see the style Ole wants and in patches we look great. I just hope he gets 4 or 5 new players that suit the new strategy and compliment the 4 or 5 we already have.
The only players in our team from any data I've seen previously that sprint in line with our rivals are Herrera, Fred, Rashford, Lingard and McT. Although I'm struggling to find much data on this right now (previous data was shown on MNF).
The most recent are from the Uefa website (distance divide minutes): https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2019/statistics/round=2000980/players/index.html
The figures I posted back on 17th December were from the same source as below post back then.
All I'm going to say is steady-pace running requires a very different type of fitness from the anaerobic fitness needed for pressing. A marathon runner thrown into a high level football game with a pressing tactic would be completely done in less than a half without the specific training needed. The different cardiovascular training needed for American football and rugby is the same thing.
In short, the poor fitness is not just an excuse for poor play.
In short, the poor fitness is not just an excuse for poor play.
In addition to distance covered sprints are also a key metric, over short and long distances. 12km over 90 minutes is actually nothing special at all in terms of pure distance. What matters more is how often they can sprint and recover. Matic spends a lot of time jogging at a medium pace but you very rarely see him quickly closing someone down. Attackers like Lukaku need to be making far more runs into channels where they know they probably won't get the ball. We need to drastically up that side of fitness for all our players really.
Like you say some of this is down to player styles; we have no consistency. Matics game is more about sitting off and covering passing lanes, which doesn't work well with someone like Fred who is all about chasing down the ball. Matic is never going to press like Fred and playing them together just makes them both easy to play around.
https://www.skysports.com/football/...-gary-neville-questions-romelu-lukaku-fitness
It's not actually about Rom. It's the team in general