Seriously, how unfit are we?

It’s obviously a problem, but it’s made far worse by still playing in Europe. Newcastle played on Monday, three days extra recovery is massive, let alone having to bring players like Eriksen and Lindelof back into the team to try and rotate.
 
It’s been an issue for years. Don’t know how much is due to poor training but a lot comes down to awful recruitment. We seem to be the last club to realise that pace, power and intensity are prerequisites in modern football. We have so many players who are downright slow (Mainoo, Casemiro, Zirkzee), weak (Garnacho) or both (Eriksen, Lindelöf).
 
Our problem isn’t fitness but physicality. Both lacking pace in key areas, and power in general. We have a group of players ill equipped for the PL.

Another issue is that this is a pretty threadbare squad and some players are playing a lot of football. Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll have some of these returning players up to speed and it’ll ease the issue, but losing Zirkzee is a major blow and will exacerbate our issues in attack. At least Chido Obi is going to get plenty of game time.
 
I dont think it's solely down to recruitment though. I mean players have come in from other clubs and they seem to regress in their game and physical quality from the moment they arrive.

Also let's look at players who've left Utd and improved, players like Elanga, he never looked as strong and quick as he does at Forest, but I'll guarantee if he stayed at Utd, he wouldn't have developed.

No, it's poor outdated training IMO. I remember during Covid times, our players were training at home, and when the league came back to resume, Utd looked the fittest team. That says a lot about the clubs approach to training, standards have been allowed to dip and now everyone puts in the minimum required. It's part of a culture too that has festered into the club, players just here for the money and nothing more.
 
We are arguably the slowest team in the league. Can’t think of any slower?

We must surely be one of the weakest and smallest?

We have the league’s worst strikers.

We have arguably one of the worst goalies

We only have one player, Bruno, thst delivers on a regular basis, thoigh Yoro is looking like the real deal.

We are where we are because of this. We used to have one the fastest teams for a couple of decades; now we are slow, weak, lacking stamina and the head coach has publicly said he is worried about the body fat percentage of some players. It’s a shambles.
 
I always think back to when Ole took over and he said that, at the very least, he wanted to turn us into one of the fittest and hardest working teams in the league. Here we are, several years later, and no closer to that goal than we were when he took over. Which is kind of fascinating. You can’t make every footballer talented but surely you can make any footballer physically fit?
 
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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Don’t you see him being both our furthest forward player in attacks, and in the back line in defence except in transitional moments
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I always think back to when Ole took over and he said that, at the very least, he wanted to turn us into one of the fittest and hardest working teams in the league. Here we are, several years later, and no closer to that goal than we were when he took over. Which is kind of fascinating. You can’t make every footballer talented but surely you can make any footballer physically fit?
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Was thinking the exact same thing about Ole. Think it was the Goodison defeat when he said lots of these players wont be here
 
It's difficult to understand how the same problems persist with the teams, despite the players and coaching team changing significantly over the years
 
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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Playing a difficult game in France and then an even harder game at Newcastle on a Sunday will have something to do with it. But I don’t think we’ve really got the depth or physical robustness to cope with it regardless. They also had a week off so they were more rest than us.

I don’t see there being any real evidence yet that this is a coaching issue. I think it’s more of a player issue.
 
I’m not buying the whole “size thing” a lot of it is attitude and mentality.

United often looked like midgets vs peak Arsenal.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
The coaches don't seem to be much better
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Very true mate, such a sad state of affairs. The club is dying and if we don’t get it right this summer I honestly feel we will go down. These players simply don’t have the minerals for a fight or have any positive reaction in them when the going gets tough.

Modern day Leeds united waiting to happen. Ah but don’t worry we’ll have a shiny new stadium - jeez
 
AndySmith1990 said:
It's difficult to understand how the same problems persist with the teams, despite the players and coaching team changing significantly over the years
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Like a lot of us have said it's recruitment. Looking for the wrong attributes in a player that doesn't transfer well to the PL. Lack of Physicality, lack of stamina, lack of fight and lack of technique. Really the PL is all about physicality and stamina, you don't even have to need top class technique, but some of our players cannot even do the basics you would expect from a professional footballer.
 
Stretfordender said:
Very true mate, such a sad state of affairs. The club is dying and if we don’t get it right this summer I honestly feel we will go down. These players simply don’t have the minerals for a fight or have any positive reaction in them when the going gets tough.

Modern day Leeds united waiting to happen. Ah but don’t worry we’ll have a shiny new stadium - jeez
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Which to me means it is not the manager/coaches entirely but the recruitment of players suggested to the managers as good options to buy.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
It's difficult to understand how the same problems persist with the teams, despite the players and coaching team changing significantly over the years
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SJR called out the data analysis team back in December for underperforming. It seems entirely possible that fitness and intensity weren’t high on the list of ideal attributes.
 
sparx99 said:
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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Sort of. Fred used to get blown over by the wind, but he could run for days. He was strong and weak both physically
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I always think back to when Ole took over and he said that, at the very least, he wanted to turn us into one of the fittest and hardest working teams in the league. Here we are, several years later, and no closer to that goal than we were when he took over. Which is kind of fascinating. You can’t make every footballer talented but surely you can make any footballer physically fit?
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We seem to swing back and forth between being a ragtag bunch of unfit lazy feckers, and a knackered bunch of crocks who’ve been run into the ground until they’re basically no use. They never just get fit and stay there.

Then the manager gets sacked, a new one comes in and signs a load of players who’ve never had any issues in this area before, and yet the cycle still repeats. It’s bizarre.
 
There's a lot of factors to consider.

1. We don't usually recruit athletic players
2. We have been under non stop injury crisis for what feels like a decade
3. We play more football than most teams in the league
4. The players who don't get injured play crazy minutes and must be knackered
5. The players who do get injured are never properly match fit when they do play

I dont think the issues listed above are isolated either. I think we get a lot of injuries because we play a lot of games and because we don't recruit players physically equipped for the PL...
 
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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Agree with this. For me it felt like we were bullied out of the game. When you got players like Tonali and Joelinton and Scharr who are as fit as anyone out there but physically they put it about a bit, we just dont have the players in midfield who can match that 'intensity'

Prob helps that Newcastle had a bit of rest and prep time from their last league game.

Hopefully Amorim is clever enough with his selection that this was a bit of a nod to the owners. Sending a bit of a message that this team beyond 4-5 players just isn't strong enough.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I always think back to when Ole took over and he said that, at the very least, he wanted to turn us into one of the fittest and hardest working teams in the league. Here we are, several years later, and no closer to that goal than we were when he took over. Which is kind of fascinating. You can’t make every footballer talented but surely you can make any footballer physically fit?
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Agree , tactics and skill may be off but fitness, we can match you at the very least
 
This is one thing for which I blame ETH. He's left a squad almost bereft on any physicality. From all of signings, perhaps De Ligt (and Weghorst) is the only one with the physicality necessary for this league. Casemiro was on the downward curve in terms of his physical prowess and the others quite frankly are just not up to it.

Amorim has recognised this and stated so multiple times, but this isn't something he can remedy until the summer. Even then we can't sign more than 4-5 players so the issue will persist, albeit to a lesser extent.
 
We've lacked physical dominance for a while, miss players like Matic and Canavni, and even Pogba that could impose themselves.
 
SER19 said:
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.
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Easy to have that energy when you’re 4-1 up at home
 
Rockets Redglare said:
The way Tonali was sprinting after 90 minutes just seems off to me.
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Just seems off to you because you've been watching us for too long. Ryan Giggs used to do this, and he has more footballing ability than any of our current players. Our players have terrible physical abilities, and they're also not good enough footballers to be able to offset that fact.
 
Impressive how we keep collecting players that are either non-athletic or have little to no technical ability or both. Only cost us a £1bn.
 
PoTMS said:
Impressive how we keep collecting players that are either non-athletic or have little to no technical ability or both. Only cost us a £1bn.
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Yeah, I don't get why we can't identify players who have both? It's really a mix of players who are solely just one or the other in the squad.
 
Just a thought. How much of it is having a core of foreign players and foreign managers?

Not including Irish and Scottish as foreign here.
 
Roane said:
Just a thought. How much of it is having a core of foreign players and foreign managers?

Not including Irish and Scottish as foreign here.
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How many core players have been British or Irish for Liverpool or City in recent years?

Andy Robertson, Trent & Curtis Jones at Liverpool.

City have had Stones & Walker. Sterling previously.

Would you argue that those groups were setting the tone? I’d only say Robertson is particularly feisty.

Arsenal have spent big on Rice & White and Saka came through the academy.

All managed by foreign managers.

Meanwhile we’ve had Shaw, Maguire, Mainoo, McTominay, Rashford. I don’t think we’ve ever had less British players than other teams. If anything we typically have more in our squad.
 
PoTMS said:
Impressive how we keep collecting players that are either non-athletic or have little to no technical ability or both. Only cost us a £1bn.
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I was about to say this. Yeah, we don't have powerful, or fast players, but we also don't have highly technical players as compensation. We seem to want average technical ability, and average pace. We stand out in no area.

It's pathetic.
 
first 20-25 mins, our players, aside from Eriksen, were strong and matched Newcastle intensity and even dominated them, and as the half went, they were alright, again, aside from Eriksen, everyone was hustling and fighting, even when they scored their first goal, they scored because our players messed about with their little cute passing and were pressed and dispossed and then conceded that silly goal and then they managed to score an equilizer and ended the half okay.

then second half happened, and lo and behold, except for Ugarte who was fighting for everything, Newcastle had it absolutely easy, they just did a bit more and easily dominated us physically
 
Luckily Eriksen played the full 90 minutes as the most athletic player in the squad... why play him in such game is beyond me.
 
We were poor when the stakes are high.

Let alone when they are not.

Kick a chair for god’s sake!
 
Fitness is a problem but so is the lack of quality squad depth. Teams like city can rotate without the quality dropping. We can’t
 
I actually don’t think the majority are unfit.

A couple of them are probably not as athletic as others and just seem slow

My honest opinion is that the players seem to be playing with the world on their shoulders. They are under so much pressure at the moment and under more scrutiny than ever it seems - from the owners slagging a number of them off, the pressure of the fans in the stadium, the press etc.

We’ve all been there when you’re not feeling right / have crap on at home or work that’s bothering you. Those weights at the gym you usually do seems heavier than normal, the passes to your mates in a 5 a side match just aren’t coming off.

Pressure does a lot to one’s performance

Evidence is clear with those players who have left and seem to be playing like a weight has been lifted off them.
 
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