Why are the pundits acting like this isn't a thing? Guardiola, Klopp, Ole, etc. have all said from the very beginning that their players will either have to push themselves past their limits and get injured more often, or they'll have to play more conservatively to get through the non-stop 3 games a week for club and international matches.
It's obvious that Guardiola's high intensity passing and Klopp's high intensity pressing depends on having fresh legs and minds too. Yet the pundits are just pretending this is any other normal season and they're wondering why people are ambling about after 80 minutes. Given so many of them are ex-pros, it seems a bit strange.
You have to wonder what state the players will be in after the Christmas period because the ones who play at full pace, people like Bruno, just look like they're going to run themselves into the ground.
Good post.
I suspect that while the pundits understand that today's players run further than those of say 10 years ago, they don't always keep it in mind when doing their analysis.
The analysis we tend to get on TV focuses on micro-events. Only rarely do they explore the choices managers make for medium and long term benefit, though with the risk of short term cost. How often do you hear a pundit explain that while a strategy/tactic has cost a team a goal, or possibly points today, it is likely to benefit them over the course of the season ?
So much of what has happened this season is due to the physical aspects of the game. United's short pre-season resulted in us being uncompetitive in the early games. Teams are having to make decisions about when to use their energy; an intense press in the first half can leave sides will little energy to survive the final 20 mins of the match. United's matches against Southampton and West Ham were extreme examples of this.
Players with too few mins appear to find it difficult to cope with the speed of the game. Players who start too often are exhausted.
Managers will need to expand the size of their core group of players that feature often. That will be a challenge for Solskjaer as he has demonstrated a strong preference for continuity in selection.
At the end of the season we will probably have a better idea of which managers made wise choices during these challenging circumstances.
Other posters in this thread have mentioned van de Beek not being used against City. So far he has made 1 key pass in 212 mins in the PL this season, a shot from Bruno Fernandes from outside the box in the 92 minute against Newcastle with the score at 1-3, the expected assist value being 0.05. The chances of him opening up a cautious City defence were slim to say the least. Even so, bringing him on for Pogba was an option that probably doesn't impact our defensive structure too much.
Ideally, we would have had a fit Cavani on the bench to swap for Rashford for the final 20 mins, or perhaps to start the match instead. I was surprised Solskjaer didn't make use of Matic in the 2nd half, as Fred performed as if his hip never recovered from the contact early on.
