Seriously, how unfit are we?

SER19

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Apr 15, 2008
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Newcastle are an admittedly very physical side but my God we looked a million miles off them with regards to strength, pace, athleticism and not to mention effort. But the purely physical difference is frightening.

Where does this blame lie? Coaches, fitness team? Or players themselves. In the 94th minute, Tonali was gliding through our team over about 70 yards while Mount, who had just come on looked like he was running in sand, it was Gary Neville v West Brom vibes. Its a huge part of why players are just running through us and scoring too, we simply cannot physically compete.

Combined with what seems to be a very fragile mentality, I would choose to play Man Utd every single week if I was part of a strong, athletic team.

So can this squad be improved in this regard. And if so, why hasnt it been done. And if not, then do we need even more of a rebuild than we might think.

All in all a very very sad showing.
 
We have no athletes in our squad, and we don't have prime iniesta, xavi and busquets to beat that play style.

It's clear that none of our current midfielders can compete with teams like Newcastle
 
We weren't prepared for Newcastle's intensity, which is what caused all of our problems. Fitness wouldn't really make the difference here when the other side are simply better.
 
TheNewEra said:
We have no athletes in our squad, and we don't have prime iniesta, xavi and busquets to beat that play style.

It's clear that none of our current midfielders can compete with teams like Newcastle
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All the more strange why we started eriksen against them again. But Ugarte certainly can't be accused of looking non physical at PSG for example and even he today just looked off it. Has 8 months of Uniteds strength and conditioning made him worse? It genuinely seems that way.
 
It is recruitment and thinking we are smarter than everybody else when playing weak players in the middle of the park, timid players on the flanks and players without threat up front. The Newcastles and CP teams are way more dangerous to us because they will hit us on our weakpoints, while against Arsenal, Liverpool and City we let them have the ball and play underdog football. But against teams where it seems like we should play actual football against, we get picked apart. Today is just the latest iteration of this issue and for way too long, those games have been shoved aside when they ended with a win because of a lucky bounce or counter that we were able to score from.
 
Raoul said:
We weren't prepared for Newcastle's intensity, which is what caused all of our problems. Fitness wouldn't really make the difference here when the other side are simply better.
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I dont know, I thought we set out a good plan early and made sure they didnt get up a head of steam so there was no early intensity. They just physically wore us down. Id say if it lasted 15 more minutes wed have had guys going down with cramp. They were bouncing off us. How can a team look so physically weak across the board its so alarming. Obviously Newcastle are great at this side, but it was the same v Forest and other teams this season.
 
This isn’t a fitness issue. Newcastle are just a bigger, stronger, more powerful team than us. This is the profile of player we’ve been talking about for a bit now, we know that we want to buy more athletic players so we can compete physically with the likes of Newcastle and other teams in the premier league.
 
Some of our players are pretty tall but Newcastle looked like giants up against us. Complete domination.

Incredible how EtH was constantly going on about the need to get fitter and how the physicality of the league was so strong and yet he did so little to rectify it.

Half the reason we look better in the EL is probably due to it being slower paced games.
 
Feels like fitness has been a major problem for us since forever. We just never look fitter than our opposition. Most likely why we very rarely have dominated games from start to finish that often.

So much is wrong with this club.
 
We’ve built the slowest, weakest most spineless squad in the PL over the last 5 years or so. It’s no wonder we get overrun by everyone.

Just on today’s game, Lindelof (slow and weak), Eriksen (slowest and weakest) Mazraoui (slowish and weakish), Amass (weak but young), Ugarte (slow), Bruno (slow and weak), Zirkzee (slow and weakish), and Garnacho (weak) all are either slower than we need or weaker than we need. Bring on someone like Hojlund who spends most his time on his backside after every CB bundles him over and we just can’t compete.

We could get away with a couple of those players being slow, weak or both on the first 11 but not that many.

But when we get players who are physically commanding like Dalot and Dorgu, their technique and football IQ is really poor.

It’s going to take us years to mould the squad into one that’s capable of challenging for top honours.
 
It's just a culmination of bad scouting, zero squad planning and what happens when you chop and change managers every few years. We've literally been buying players on how they are in their own leagues, not how they might fit the EPL. At this point, were it not for the cost, we should only be buying from the EPL and only players that can add physicality.
 
SER19 said:
All the more strange why we started eriksen against them again. But Ugarte certainly can't be accused of looking non physical at PSG for example and even he today just looked off it. Has 8 months of Uniteds strength and conditioning made him worse? It genuinely seems that way.
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One player isn't enough though. Thats the issue. Our rivals employ players that combine physicality and ability AND they have them play in systems where their output gets maximized because they are well organized. Thats what we are up against and while we can get the upperhand against some teams in terms of ability and our organizations seems to improve, we still struggle when teams offer all three to a superior level.

edit: in terms of squad planning - it has to be said, that we probably expected at least two of Sancho, Antony and Rashford to at least contribute, players who should be in their physical prime these days. Losing (more or less) all of themwould be a serious hit to every planning
 
Not helped by starting two of the most unphysical players in Lindelof and Eriksen, as well as debutant Amass.

ETH claimed he viewed Guardiola’s first season as a cautionary tale about needing physicality but he sure didn’t buy players that fit that, and nor did Murtough.
 
Rockets Redglare said:
The way Tonali was sprinting after 90 minutes just seems off to me.
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ive thought this a few times watching newcastle. guimaraes and joelinton too - credit to their physcaility but i cant remember many players in all my life watching that keep at it at 100% until full time. this newcastle team is full of them.
 
Irwin99 said:
Some of our players are pretty tall but Newcastle looked like giants up against us. Complete domination.

Incredible how EtH was constantly going on about the need to get fitter and how the physicality of the league was so strong and yet he did so little to rectify it.

Half the reason we look better in the EL is probably due to it being slower paced games.
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ETH's squad composition is some of the most insanely idiotic in football history. Identified that the pace and intensity of league needed players with physical qualities to stand up to it, continually brought in players without those qualities.

And then played the wide open doughnut midfield, with last legs Cas at the base that directly showcased that lack. It was insane and should have meant he was sacked a full year before they dumped him, for all the whining about injuries and bad luck his management of what he had was inept.
 
Rockets Redglare said:
The way Tonali was sprinting after 90 minutes just seems off to me.
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Most other teams players do this, it’s nothing untoward, WE used to have players who could do it.

We’ve just bought a lot of players with poor athleticism and stamina and have them all in the team.
 
siw2007 said:
This isn’t a fitness issue. Newcastle are just a bigger, stronger, more powerful team than us. This is the profile of player we’ve been talking about for a bit now, we know that we want to buy more athletic players so we can compete physically with the likes of Newcastle and other teams in the premier league.
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This is it, we have quite a high level of fitness across the squad (with a few obvious elderly exceptions), the problem is the lack of strength, pace, power, and acceleration.
 
Bad recruitment, past-it players and kids. We simply haven't bought players suited to this league. It's that simple.
 
We lack physicality in a big way, and have done for years now. We also lack technicality, and have done for years. And now we don’t even have any moments players bailing us out with goals. Hence us hurtling towards the championship.
 
I mean this was one of the more predictable results we’ve had in a while. Newcastle are possibly the worst matchup in the league for us, as they athletically miles ahead of us and have forwards that can take advantage of our mistakes.

Some of us have been saying for years that we are hilariously poor athletically. It gets exposed in games like this
 
TheNewEra said:
We have no athletes in our squad, and we don't have prime iniesta, xavi and busquets to beat that play style.

It's clear that none of our current midfielders can compete with teams like Newcastle
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Dorgu, yoro are both athletes and played. Haven is also for the future.
 
Barcodes had all week to prepare, our players flew back from France, then Virtually straight up to Newcastle for a match. They have a cohesive midfield, we don’t. Then we have Eriksen whose legs have gone playing for us. Manager made mistakes, as did the players. This isn’t an easy fix, but hopefully a home game on Thursday sparks something in the team.
 
Hammondo said:
Dorgu, yoro are both athletes and played. Haven is also for the future.
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Where does that myth come from that Dorgu is such a great athlete? He seems to have quite an engine but doesn't seem to be overly strong or pacey.
 
Godfather said:
Where does that myth come from that Dorgu is such a great athlete? He seems to have quite an engine but doesn't seem to be overly strong or pacey.
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I would say he has both good strength and pace, literally what he was bought for.
 
Godfather said:
His pace is ok nothing more. And I hope an engine alone is not what he was bought for.
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I think it was, he has never shown anything else. I remember the thread about him before we bought him, so many saying this is the type of athletic player we need for this system. No ball ability though.
 
Red_toad said:
Barcodes had all week to prepare, our players flew back from France, then Virtually straight up to Newcastle for a match. They have a cohesive midfield, we don’t. Then we have Eriksen whose legs have gone playing for us. Manager made mistakes, as did the players.
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And they had a better team than us, it’s not fair!
 
siw2007 said:
This isn’t a fitness issue. Newcastle are just a bigger, stronger, more powerful team than us. This is the profile of player we’ve been talking about for a bit now, we know that we want to buy more athletic players so we can compete physically with the likes of Newcastle and other teams in the premier league.
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I think it can be both, and one can even make an argument that fitness and athleticism are inextricably linked.

We actually looked like a competent team for the first 25 minutes or so of the match and in good chunks of the half overall. As the game went on, we looked more tired and thus made more silly makes, which Newcastle simply took advantage of. Off the top of my head, Bruno is the only player we have that could consistently rely on to play 90mins without his level dropping off badly compared to others.

Most of our subpar performances under Amorim also came in the back of playing matches midweek, if I recall correctly.
 
Ragnick pointed out what I assumed was obvious years ago about the lack of physicality in the squad.

Ten Hag ignored it, if anything made the problem even worse with his signings.
 
ThanksBoss26 said:
Been a persistent problem for years now.
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It isn't nothing new. The PL you need physicality in certain positions. We just haven't signed those players. We look at players from abroad and how they play in those leagues, which is fair enough, but do not then look at if they have an edge about them, if they can fit physically into the PL, not just strength wise but speed as well.
 
Winrar said:
I think it can be both, and one can even make an argument that fitness and athleticism are inextricably linked.

We actually looked like a competent team for the first 25 minutes or so of the match and in good chunks of the half overall. As the game went on, we looked more tired and thus made more silly makes, which Newcastle simply took advantage of. Off the top of my head, Bruno is the only player we have that could consistently rely on to play 90mins without his level dropping off badly compared to others.

Most of our subpar performances under Amorim also came in the back of playing matches midweek, if I recall correctly.
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It is amazing how many of our players looked gassed by HT.
 
Been an issue forever. The problem is the squad is just a Mish mash of players. Do we want to be technical or athletic? Because we only sign players who specialise in one of those
 
Really is a sight. The opposing team just simply shifts the ball to their other foot and just glides past them. No desire or athleticism to get back in the game. Embarrassing.
 
Lay said:
Been an issue forever. The problem is the squad is just a Mish mash of players. Do we want to be technical or athletic? Because we only sign players who specialise in one of those
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We need players who have technique and are athletes as well, other teams seem to be able to find them. Ours seem to be knocked about too easily. You are beaten before you barely get going if the opposition think you are a bit of a soft touch.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
It isn't nothing new. The PL you need physicality in certain positions. We just haven't signed those players. We look at players from abroad and how they play in those leagues, which is fair enough, but do not then look at if they have an edge about them, if they can fit physically into the PL, not just strength wise but speed as well.
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This is ironically why we’ve gone backwards since moving on from McFred. They lacked positional discipline and some technical ability but they did have the physicality to play PL football.
 
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