Surprised there isn't already a thread on this because it seems like this, at the moment is the single biggest issue with the team at the moment. We seem to be massively undercooked at the moment. I was at the game Monday, and it seemed clear as day to me. Leave aside tactics and player selection, we were just being outmuscled, and outpaced all over the pitch. Casemiro was probably the "standout" but apparently he always starts the season slow, whatever that means!
But Licha, Bruno, Shaw, Rashford, Mount all seemed to lack any sort of sharpness. It's almost laughable to think that we're being told about ETH meticulousness about every single aspect of the game, and yet we seem to be the one of the most sluggish teams out of all the PL teams!
And I felt like it wasnt a case of our players being winded towards the end, I remember commenting as early as the 10th minute that it seemed like our players had played 90 minutes somewhere else before the match. It was that bad.
Whats frustrating is you'd think this was one of the easiest things to get right, especially with ETH now having the luxury of planning a full pre-season and all. Of course every team is going to be a tad sluggish at the start, Arsenal and City for instance both looked a way off their best especially towards the end of their matches but to be in the shape we were in is just criminal.
I'm comforted by the fact that we had that behind doors match against Everton this week and also the fact that almost every single player looked miles off the pace suggests that its not a case of the players themselves individually losing an extra step and just declining ala Fabinho last season but more a case of the group just not being there physically.
Obviously you'd think its a case of marginal improvement leading to them looking like their old selves soonish rather than some nightmare situation where we end up falling behind everyone else in the first few matches because we havent gotten up to full match sharpness. I suppose the PL being such a physically powerful league means if you're off the pace even a tad bit, you end up being dominated by even 2nd or 3rd tier teams which is what Wolves are going to be.
But Licha, Bruno, Shaw, Rashford, Mount all seemed to lack any sort of sharpness. It's almost laughable to think that we're being told about ETH meticulousness about every single aspect of the game, and yet we seem to be the one of the most sluggish teams out of all the PL teams!
And I felt like it wasnt a case of our players being winded towards the end, I remember commenting as early as the 10th minute that it seemed like our players had played 90 minutes somewhere else before the match. It was that bad.
Whats frustrating is you'd think this was one of the easiest things to get right, especially with ETH now having the luxury of planning a full pre-season and all. Of course every team is going to be a tad sluggish at the start, Arsenal and City for instance both looked a way off their best especially towards the end of their matches but to be in the shape we were in is just criminal.
I'm comforted by the fact that we had that behind doors match against Everton this week and also the fact that almost every single player looked miles off the pace suggests that its not a case of the players themselves individually losing an extra step and just declining ala Fabinho last season but more a case of the group just not being there physically.
Obviously you'd think its a case of marginal improvement leading to them looking like their old selves soonish rather than some nightmare situation where we end up falling behind everyone else in the first few matches because we havent gotten up to full match sharpness. I suppose the PL being such a physically powerful league means if you're off the pace even a tad bit, you end up being dominated by even 2nd or 3rd tier teams which is what Wolves are going to be.