Dock us by 15 points if you must.
Pep - Doping (?) | Are PEDs being used by footballers
- Thread starter JoaquinJoaquin
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Surely it's because they control the game and the tempo of the game that they are able to conserve energy, they have over 2/3rds of the ball at least most matches so of course they will be fresher than the opposition later on. To say they are doped up as an excuse seems an easy way out.
He doped as a player, doped as Barca manager and doped as Bayern manager. I’m sure City are above board though. None of it matters anyway, it’s rife in the game and is the worst kept secret in sport. It would break everything if it was exposed.
Make it 30, we’d still feck it up somehow.Dock us by 15 points if you must.
If guilty then just treat them like Juventus when they were caught match fixing.
Ahm ... If they had something to hide they would simply report a different (earlier) expected return in the first place. Instead of saying "6 months out" and the player returns in 4 months they could also just report "3 - 4 months" in the first place instead of being so dumb to raise suspicion with honest reporting but then proceeding to cheat via doping.
De Bruyne has been in the league for 3 seasons, and most of that time has seemed physically inadequate over the course of season, and even individual games, making him chronically inconsistent. Now suddenly, without any kind of Bale/Ronaldo-like obvious physical development, can run harder than ever for 90 minutes 3 times a week?
Silva is suddenly playing with a nastiness he never had before, and Fernandinho who has had long periods of poor form in each of the previous 4 seasons due to fatigue suddenly sustains his stamina the older he gets? Otamendi was an animal at Valencia, looked weak in his first 2 seasons in England yet suddenly looks dominant again at the same time as all of these other abnormalities are happening?
These are not great athletes, just like the majority of the Spanish team the dominanted football weren’t, yet they could suddenly sustain crazy intensity late into games? Xavi went from riding bench behind Deco and Van Bommel in his mid 20s to the best midfielder in the world - it makes no sense.
I think it’s a Spanish thing that transcends into other sports - Rafa Nadal always seemed abnormally powerful to me; watching such an infinitely better technician like Federer struggling to handle his perpetual power and intensity always seemed suspicious.
It’s something that should be scrutinised accordingly - if the FBI can probe FIFAs dodgy internal financial dealings then surely clarifying something like this can be justified too.
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Leicester are the other team who’re widely alleged to have doped their way to a title recently - Kante was the embodiment of that success, literally perpetual motion; anyone who’s watched him for Chelsea this year will have noticed a mortality in his performances - he’s nowhere near as influential or intense. Same goes for Drinkwater; he looks like a Championship player again.
Spurs are the epitome of a well drilled, high intensity football team, full of fantastic, powerful athletes, and their form shows inevitable patterns of fatigue over the season, every season. Why were Leicester and now City, with their inferior athletes, able to endure it with no noticeable fluctuation in form?
Spurs are the epitome of a well drilled, high intensity football team, full of fantastic, powerful athletes, and their form shows inevitable patterns of fatigue over the season, every season. Why were Leicester and now City, with their inferior athletes, able to endure it with no noticeable fluctuation in form?
Have we turned into Liverpool?
20 points and you'd still win it.Dock us by 15 points if you must.
Our players have been on lsd recently.
I agree completely with this post. This doping discussion has nothing to do with Man City in my eyes, and everything to do with Guardiola and his connections (probably Spanish). Guardiola is not a pressing specialist; he simply believes that you should press the ball to regain possession and drills teams to do so; yet he somehow outperforms a pressing specialist in Klopp in terms of intensity and work ethic over the season.
Man City are not an 'energy efficient' team; they run A LOT and it includes a lot of sprints. However; they tire at a slower rate than teams that run less which does not add up.
What you've said about Tottenham is spot on; they display regular behaviour for a high intensity team. They have peaks and troughs through the game and through the season. Man City (and all previous Guardiola teams) operate at full speed no matter what the game state or point of the season. The only exception was in a small period at Bayern Munich where players were complaining about fatigue. Funnily enough, Guardiola was not particularly friendly to the Bayern medical staff because they wanted to treat the players in-house.
I'm under no illusion to think Guardiola is the only doper; I think most footballers dope. However, I think Guardiola has found a source of dope that that really clicks with his style of management and this is why he is so insistent on his players going to specific places for treatment.
Guardiola's approach conserves energy and re-directs it to attacking moves.
1. If you have the ball, the opposition are running after it.
2. If you maintain over 65% possession each game then the opposition are running most of the game(s).
3. If you're ball-retaining and high-pressing, the distance between your back line and theirs is shorter, therefore, less room to cover running on defensive transition.
4. Decrease of instances of defensive transition means an increase of energy to offensive runs, hence why players are making good runs for longer periods.
1. If you have the ball, the opposition are running after it.
2. If you maintain over 65% possession each game then the opposition are running most of the game(s).
3. If you're ball-retaining and high-pressing, the distance between your back line and theirs is shorter, therefore, less room to cover running on defensive transition.
4. Decrease of instances of defensive transition means an increase of energy to offensive runs, hence why players are making good runs for longer periods.
The above makes no sense whatsoever, because Guardiola teams are regularly among the highest in distance covered and sprints. His approach does not conserve energy; in fact it does the opposite because Guardiola teams work extremely hard on their positioning off the ball.
You do not suddenly gain more stamina because you are replacing defensive moves with attacking moves. Distance and Intensity decide the energy expenditure, not the direction of the ball.
Seems like it
Criticism gets shouted down and replaced by conspiracy theories about doping and buying off the media.Dock us by 15 points if you must.
Points??? Just a few points??? No. Relegate City to National League.
What makes him not a pressing specialist? As you state he coaches the team to do so and it has been very effective to me that means he is pretty good at coaching the press kind of like a pressing specialist...
After 22 games City actually sits 10th at distance covered. Not sure where you get your information from could not find information on sprints, but would be very surprised if we were anywhere near the top of the list since sprints mostly happen in transition. Link for distance covered: https://www.dreamteamfc.com/c/news-gossip/371527/premier-league-table-distance-covered-this-season/ Maybe you could share your sources of information?
The amount of baseless claims and completely unsupported claims is quite staggering in this thread. DeBruyne said he was completely knackered before the Burnley game and following that game Pep gave all the players four days off to deal with fatigue. Sounds like good squad management to me. Also does doping even speed up ligament damage? Seems there are a lot of doping specialists on here generally curious?
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No it does not but is not really that big of a deal since this isn't powerlifting where your joints are under greater stress.
Doping lets u train more. Speeds up recovery. Joints and ligaments would eventually adapt but slower than the muscles.
Nah, we've become far worse.
We are giving our player the wrong drugs.
Last year he could have used his doping systems instead of losing the Premier
If City are at it everyone else will be. Pep just has the best dealer in the ends?
Rawk worthy thread.
According to this City were the team with most sprints by November
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/foo...Bellerin-Dele-Alli-Jordan-Ayew-sportgalleries
I posted this earlier in the thread
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...-would-do-almost-anything-to-get-an-edge.html
Danny Mills talks about the use of controversial and sometimes illegal treatment for injuries. It is no secret that a lot these happen in Spain which is where the chatter around Pep sending his players there comes from. Remember that Thiago Alcantara once could not be found to be drug tested whilst recovering from injury as a Bayern player in Pep’s time, Alcantara’s agent is Pep’s brother etc. all circumstantial of course but there is a lot of it around him throughout his career.
It was KDB against Spurs that really surprised me. The intensity he played with was incredible. He covered the most distance and had the most sprints in that game. He was completely pole axed by a Spurs player at one point and shock it off immediately and resumed playing like a man possessed. I felt the same watching Robben for Bayern in the CL once, never saw him play with such intensity before and I think he was over 30 then too.
Seems people can write as much nonsense as possible here..doping at Bayern? Nice story, but never happened, but go on and spread more of that laughable BS
How is Guardiola not a pressing specialist? It's a feature of how all his teams play. In particular the fact they do it for only a few seconds after the loss of the ball is highly significant. Most teams hand it straight back, particularly in the PL.
In fact it may be that City last year just didn't have the training/discipline to stick to things like those short timings. Learning to recover after a short sprint is critical if you're going to be able to do those short sprints repeatedly. It's a hard thing to learn, particularly if your PL training (from coaches, teammates, and the crowd) is that pausing or walking slowly back after a sprint is lazy.
Maybe De Bruyne now understands how it's done, and can trust his teammates to understand it too, and to cover for him while he saunters back into place.
That intensity they manage to keep up 90 mins has gotten many people scratching their head including me. There was atleast half a dozen moments in this season that made me feel " how the feck they manage to keep up !! ".
I still don't believe the doping concerns though. If something like that was there Jose would have found it a long time ago. But I guess something is taking a toll in the players and I would like to believe that's why Pep's teams tends to struggle after 3-4 years.
Thanks actually clicked that article, but thought it was just about individual players.
Had no idea what a sprint is defined as. Just looked up what a sprint is defined as and it is any run in excess of 25.2 kph. I know is is the new in stat and sure shows bursts of intensity, but now that I know what it actually means I'm a bit skeptical of reading too much into it. 25.2 kph isn't that fast especially for professional soccer players. It equates to a 57.6 400m time. For reference back in high school track a brutal weekly workout was 12 X 400m in 62s with 60s rest between them (Could not imagine doing that now). Certain quick players like Sane who has been recorded reaching 35 kph hitting 25 kph probably isn't really much effort. It does not differentiate long sprints such as a counter attack or recovering on defense to very short sprints. The way City press most of these sprints are probably extremely short to win back possession during their press. Don't think sprints as they are defined reveals much on its own in regards to physical exertion let alone making an argument for doping.
I agree, high distance covered or high number of sprints isn't a case for doping at all. The suspicion of Pep's sides come from the intensity they play with and his and Spain's history of doping. Personally I think something will come out in the wash regarding his Barca side eventually. As for Bayern and City, admittedly there isn't anything like the amount of circumstantial evidence there was with Barca.
As a more general point, I think one of the most common misconceptions about doping is that it only aids the players in running around a bit more. The advantages are numerous and most importantly combat fatigue IMO. When a player become tired their technique starts to fail so maintaining sharpness when your opponents are flagging is a crucial advantage. Also the ability to recover quicker from fatigue in between game is massively beneficial over a long season. They do improve recovery time from injury too. They also imbue athletes with massive confidence, sometimes described as feeling 'invincible'.
Yeah, keep telling yourself it's "criticism" and not mostly a bitterness fueled circle jerk of gossip and rumours with very little evidence. Good for you.
We have the same on Blue Moon mate.
Seems like it, must have changed his supplier after last year. The narrative on this thread seems to be Pep not successful = not doping, Pep successful = doping. I mean, it's not as if the success of Barcelona or the present form of City could be attributed to other things, such as incredibly talented footballers and huge financial resources. I remember reading about the doping allegations levelled against Leicester when they won the league. It's embarrassing to be honest. I'm guessing that similarly Leicester must only have doped for that one year before deciding they'd had enough success from it.
This made me laugh...
Even at that Utd would still need to finish second and that at the moment isnt really nailed on by any means. .Dock us by 15 points if you must.
Doping is just a cheap way to try and explain why City work harder than other teams to be honest (especially us).
I seem to remember when Pep took over, he wasn't happy that some of his players weren't fit enough. He made them train separately from the main group. Fitness, stamina etc. is obviously key to him.
There seems to be this just generally believed idea that all top level professional footballers are already in peak condition so stuff like this can only make so much difference, but it just isn't true. Just looking at United, Tevez was a "lazy trainer" according to Ferguson. Anderson has admitted he wasn't as fit as he could be. Rooney could be seen drinking in the executive box during lunch time kick offs, and was often visibly overweight.
Players often just aren't as fit or hard working as they can be and I think a big part of Pep's whole "philosophy" (I still hate how pompous this word is when being used to describe fecking football tactics), is just a realisation of that, and a focus on building a team of very good players, who are never going to find themselves second best in terms of work rate, or fitness. The way his City team play is different from Barcelona under him. The similarity is in the work rate when they don't have the ball. If you train players to do that, make sure they're fit enough to do it...why can't they do it?
Not that I'm saying that there aren't a lot of suspicious coincidences, because there are. If you were looking at it from an investigative point of view it's just impossible to ignore...but the problem I have with that is this idea that City...or more specifically Pep, are the only ones who've latched on to this method of team doping. No other team in the world, or manager, would possibly follow suit...and yet at the same time no one has had anything to say about it. He's managed three teams now...he's managed to convince three separate clubs to engage in some kind of doping regime, and no one else has copied it or spoken out about it? Either other teams are at it too, or it's not at the level being implied.
You don't spend ridiculous money that blows even other rich clubs out of the water, on building a team of top class players, getting in a top class manager to train them rigorously, just to engage in some form of miracle doping that can make all of that irrelevant anyway.
I seem to remember when Pep took over, he wasn't happy that some of his players weren't fit enough. He made them train separately from the main group. Fitness, stamina etc. is obviously key to him.
There seems to be this just generally believed idea that all top level professional footballers are already in peak condition so stuff like this can only make so much difference, but it just isn't true. Just looking at United, Tevez was a "lazy trainer" according to Ferguson. Anderson has admitted he wasn't as fit as he could be. Rooney could be seen drinking in the executive box during lunch time kick offs, and was often visibly overweight.
Players often just aren't as fit or hard working as they can be and I think a big part of Pep's whole "philosophy" (I still hate how pompous this word is when being used to describe fecking football tactics), is just a realisation of that, and a focus on building a team of very good players, who are never going to find themselves second best in terms of work rate, or fitness. The way his City team play is different from Barcelona under him. The similarity is in the work rate when they don't have the ball. If you train players to do that, make sure they're fit enough to do it...why can't they do it?
Not that I'm saying that there aren't a lot of suspicious coincidences, because there are. If you were looking at it from an investigative point of view it's just impossible to ignore...but the problem I have with that is this idea that City...or more specifically Pep, are the only ones who've latched on to this method of team doping. No other team in the world, or manager, would possibly follow suit...and yet at the same time no one has had anything to say about it. He's managed three teams now...he's managed to convince three separate clubs to engage in some kind of doping regime, and no one else has copied it or spoken out about it? Either other teams are at it too, or it's not at the level being implied.
You don't spend ridiculous money that blows even other rich clubs out of the water, on building a team of top class players, getting in a top class manager to train them rigorously, just to engage in some form of miracle doping that can make all of that irrelevant anyway.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
If we'd not won the lottery,
We'd be in League 2.
hahaha very good
Inb4dalock.
If it cannot can not withstand the daylight to would be worth proberly exposing. You know I wouldn't be socked if English part of City's board would be above such dishonesty but I wouldn't put past the Arabs to do anyting to make their City project succsess. And since the Arabs are in majority I would be suprised if the English had to back down.
Remember when Rooney was supposed to be out for a month after his ankle injury but came back 6 days later against Bayern.....