Workrate

[caid]

The distance between top and bottom isn’t even that big, I’m not sure what conclusions could be drawn from this.

I wouldn't want to be bottom all the same.
Villa didn't look a mobile team today. It looked like they had most of their players in their own half at all times and a couple of forwards meant to do everything at the other end single handed.
Maybe they expected nothing from the game and would usually play differently, but if its a regular occurence its easy to see how they'd struggle to score or keep the pressure off their defence for more than 30 seconds.
You'd probably need to be familiar with the team to get anything useful from the information and its hard to draw much of a conclusion from being middle of the road in United's case. Its good to be away from the bottom of the table i guess.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Something else that’s interesting is that our latest distance data is more or less the same as in the OP. Liverpool’s workrate has really fallen off a cliff.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

how does it compare to the rest of the league?

I wouldn’t take much from this given our pre-season. However, if thats the Same after 10 games then the would be concerning.

 

[Dante]

Swap out Matic and Pogba for Fred and McTominay and we'd be comfortably in the middle of that grouping.

It's also fair to say that United and City have had a bad case of hangovers from the late finish to the previous season. We'll both get better on the workrate metrics in the coming weeks.

Spurs will stay somewhere near the bottom since that's simply the way Mourinho likes to play.

For Ole, he obviously prefers a high energy style but can't get a tune out of the squad at this point in the season. 4 new players should help with the fatigue levels, if nothing else.

 

[TwoSheds]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

Does that account for the fact we had one less player for most of one of the games?

 

[Dante]

Does that account for the fact we had one less player for most of one of the games?

Good point. Martial proably runs about 9 to 10km per game. You could add 4.5km to our total for a fairer reflection of where we should be.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Does that account for the fact we had one less player for most of one of the games?

statistics, bloody statistics.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Good point. Martial proably runs about 9 to 10km per game. You could add 4.5km to our total for a fairer reflection of where we should be.

Good point. Although he played for a third of the game he was sent off in. So let’s assume we’re only missing 6km off his total. 12km instead of 18km. Which would increase our total by 3km. Behind Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Ahead of City, which is pretty amazing.

 

[Abhinav]

Good point. Although he played for a third of the game he was sent off in. So let’s assume we’re only missing 6km off his total. 12km instead of 18km. Which would increase our total by 3km. Behind Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Ahead of City, which is pretty amazing.

Wouldn’t it be 2 km since it is per game and we have played 3 games? Still would put us just above city and would underly both teams progression (or lack of) in terms of gaining match fitness. Would be also interesting to get stats on sprints as I think there may be a more significant difference between the manchester teams and others.

 

[NinjaFletch]

Good point. Although he played for a third of the game he was sent off in. So let’s assume we’re only missing 6km off his total. 12km instead of 18km. Which would increase our total by 3km. Behind Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Ahead of City, which is pretty amazing.

Both sides who could conceivably claim to have come into the season undercooked and Spurs who are a Mourinho side and don't run

 

[Borys]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

10,5 km per field player vs 11,2 km per field player. 700m of difference in total, that's something like 7%.

Hard to say if it's a lot. Is there some evidence that teams with higher ground covered tend to get better result? What is the spread in the whole league? How does it vary game to game?

I wouldn't read much into it. Not disagreeing about it being a problem, just that it's very top view Stat without any valid conclusions.

To be honest, just by looking at Matic and Pogba, I would say the difference should be much bigger.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Wouldn’t it be 2 km since it is per game and we have played 3 games? Still would put us just above city and would underly both teams progression (or lack of) in terms of gaining match fitness. Would be also interesting to get stats on sprints as I think there may be a more significant difference between the manchester teams and others.

Shit. Yeah. Got that wrong. In my defence, I’m quite stoned.

 

[Cheimoon]

10,5 km per field player vs 11,2 km per field player. 700m of difference in total, that's something like 7%.

Hard to say if it's a lot. Is there some evidence that teams with higher ground covered tend to get better result? What is the spread in the whole league? How does it vary game to game?

I wouldn't read much into it. Not disagreeing about it being a problem, just that it's very top view Stat without any valid conclusions.

To be honest, just by looking at Matic and Pogba, I would say the difference should be much bigger.

Yeah, I was wondering about that. How statistically significant is the difference really? Would be nice to have this stat for the entire league, both overall and for individual games. That would potentially be more telling.

 

[caid]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

I kind of presume last seasons numbers would have been better? At least up to the post covid games when fatigue was the latest excuse.
A Pogba, Matic midfield is always going to be a really poor base to set the tempo of a team. Its been said already but bring in Fred and McTominay and i think the rest of the team around them will run harder. If Fred is sprinting past Wan Bisakka to get back it might encourage him to pick up the pace.

 

[FrankDrebin]

Maguire, Matic and Pogba set the tone for a leisurely style game and that's bad because they're the backbone of our team.

 

[redmanx]

statistics, bloody statistics.

Statistics dont win games, leagues or trophies.

 

[Jacob]

Statistics dont win games, leagues or trophies.

Stats for points does.

 

[red woppit]

Maguire, Matic and Pogba set the tone for a leisurely style game and that's bad because they're the backbone of our team.

Absolutely. I have never understood why we played such a quick, dynamic game when Ole first came in, it was like a breath of fresh air, but lately we have looked so ponderous/leisurely when in possession. You are probably right, so really we need to get more dynamic players in the team.

 

[jungledrums]

Absolutely. I have never understood why we played such a quick, dynamic game when Ole first came in, it was like a breath of fresh air, but lately we have looked so ponderous/leisurely when in possession. You are probably right, so really we need to get more dynamic players in the team.

They need to be of the requisite level to actually improve the team though. Sure, we could bring Fred and Mctominay in, but to what end? We’ll probably top the running charts, but we won’t be a better team.

 

[ghagua]

Statistics dont win games, leagues or trophies.

Prefer to judge on what I see on the pitch. Stats have their places, but not everything can be judged on that.

 

[Grande]

Shit. Yeah. Got that wrong. In my defence, I’m quite stoned.

I’m sure you know that counts as a defence no more than what we fielded against Spurs last Sunday

In all seriousness though, the miles ran stats does not say much on its own, and particularily after so few matches, it’s so dependable on playing styles not just of your own team, but also of the opposition if you look at such a small sample. What is significant, is that if you’re bottom of the table after a prolonged space of time, it’s normally not a good sign (unless you’ve won them all, in which case it’s a tremendous sign). And if you are way below your own average, it’s often not a good sign.

In the current case, it does possibly say something, as Solskjær last season said he wanted us to increase our general movement and capacity for movement compared to when he took over from Mou. This also happened, we rose from bottom part of that table to middle of that table, which was good enough to be the most winning team for the latter half of the year. Middle of the table can be perfect woth Solskjærs style. What we see now, is that we’ve ran less than the opponent in all three games, so that’s telling, Martials red notwithstanding. What it tells, is that we run less than Solskjær wants, and less than we’ve ran (I keep saying ‘we’ as if I’m not sitting in the couch) for him up until the last three to six games.

Seeing as it was a capacity problem and not a tactical problem a year ago, and it was solved/improved by a preseason training regime last year, and that what has happened between when weran enough and now is that we’ve not had a preseason, it is highly likely it’s got something to do with capacity having dropped due to lack of preseason, rather than anything to do with Solskjær’s tactics, Pogba’s motivation, Shaw’s mentality, Rashford’s confidence nor Matic’s age.

I dare say it’s a question of wether there is a way to get that capacity up again during the season or not, otherwise no kind of manager bar maybe a Mourinho or Conte will be able to get the team to a top four place, regardless of coaching or player quality.

 

[Grande]

Absolutely. I have never understood why we played such a quick, dynamic game when Ole first came in, it was like a breath of fresh air, but lately we have looked so ponderous/leisurely when in possession. You are probably right, so really we need to get more dynamic players in the team.

Maybe a rehash of my poonts above, but I think it’s a quite clear picture in that regard: Mourinho generally plays a football that requires less dynamic movement like kms ran or no of sprints. Solskjær wanted the team to ‘run more’ so they did immediately. They did not, however, have the capacity for that as they were trained to suit Mourinho’s demands, so they collapsed after twenty games. Soslkjær stated he needed a different training regime over two or three preseasons to lift the capacity to the level he desires for his way of playing. The players testified to that last summer, it was a much harder regime. We subsequently ran and sprinted more last season, which gradually also improved results. Now we’ve not had a preseason training regime of the kind of wich Solskjær deemed necessary, and the capacity and hence movement is down again. And hence results. It’s not really a mystery.

Statistics dont win games, leagues or trophies.

Probably the worst phrased post of the thread, as statistics is exactly that which win games, namely the goals for/against statistics.

Prefer to judge on what I see on the pitch. Stats have their places, but not everything can be judged on that.

Exactly, and my eyes tell me that we’ve been half a yard off the pace against Palace, Brighton and Spurs, and the km stats confirms that my eyes are not dead wrong.

 

[meamth]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

3 games into the season without pre season??FFS.

 

[Ish]

Does it stand to reason that the gap, in distance covered is also impacted by the high line some teams play. i.e. Pool running more, with a much higher line (thereby compressing the field) results in their insane intensity and pressing?

 

[WR10]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

With Scott and Fred in midfield we'd top the table. With Bruno, Pogba and Matic - our 'engine' doesn't even look like they want to run. That mentally shuts off the remainder of the team

 

[Gio]

Does it stand to reason that the gap, in distance covered is also impacted by the high line some teams play. i.e. Pool running more, with a much higher line (thereby compressing the field) results in their insane intensity and pressing?

Yes it can be, but depends on your tactics. Take the example of the 2018 World Cup, by some distance Germany, Spain and Argentina played the 3 highest lines in the tournament. They were also the three teams with the highest possession. But Germany covered the 2nd most distance out of the 32 teams with 112k, Spain were in the bottom half with 104k, while Argentina were near the bottom with an average of 99k per game.

So why the variation? Germany's possession game was more vertical in nature, bypassing opponents far more often and getting into the opposition penalty box far more often than any other side in the competition. Whereas Spain's use of the ball was more horizontal as both the stats and anyone who watched their side-to-side snooze-fest against Russia can testify. Spain were also down the bottom of the rankings for high-speed running, again reflective of their less incisive tactics. The difference with Argentina was that when they had the ball they didn't stretch the play, preferring to keep players compact to support shorter combinations and in theory less vulnerable to transitions. They were the most compact team, along with Iran, in the competition.

So it really depends on the team's tactics on and off the ball.

 

[dev1l]

We need more asthmatic players I guess

 

[kiristao]

We don't need stats to prove we have players that don't have enough work rate. It's pretty obvious when you watch them play and this has been the trend for a long time now.

 

[Forevergiggs1]

If it isn't coordinated then it doesn't matter how far players run in games. 11 individuals running for the sake of it won't take us anywhere.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

Our form has tanked with our lack of workrate. Effects of a non existent pre season.

 

[MadDogg]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

I'm hesitant to take too much from this after thee games when we didn't get a preseason. Man City are barely ahead of us, and when you take into account we played about 60 minutes with a man down that probably more than makes up that difference. The other three all got a proper preseason. Spurs don't really have an excuse.

It wouldn't exactly surprise me if we end up being bottom (or maybe second to Spurs) even once we get going, but with those things in mind this particular stat doesn't mean much right now.

 

[Ish]

Yes it can be, but depends on your tactics. Take the example of the 2018 World Cup, by some distance Germany, Spain and Argentina played the 3 highest lines in the tournament. They were also the three teams with the highest possession. But Germany covered the 2nd most distance out of the 32 teams with 112k, Spain were in the bottom half with 104k, while Argentina were near the bottom with an average of 99k per game.

So why the variation? Germany's possession game was more vertical in nature, bypassing opponents far more often and getting into the opposition penalty box far more often than any other side in the competition. Whereas Spain's use of the ball was more horizontal as both the stats and anyone who watched their side-to-side snooze-fest against Russia can testify. Spain were also down the bottom of the rankings for high-speed running, again reflective of their less incisive tactics. The difference with Argentina was that when they had the ball they didn't stretch the play, preferring to keep players compact to support shorter combinations and in theory less vulnerable to transitions. They were the most compact team, along with Iran, in the competition.

So it really depends on the team's tactics on and off the ball.

Thanks for that Gio. Appreciated. I know you know your footy

Do you think the variation is coaching instructions and patterns?

 

[redmanx]

Maybe a rehash of my poonts above, but I think it’s a quite clear picture in that regard: Mourinho generally plays a football that requires less dynamic movement like kms ran or no of sprints. Solskjær wanted the team to ‘run more’ so they did immediately. They did not, however, have the capacity for that as they were trained to suit Mourinho’s demands, so they collapsed after twenty games. Soslkjær stated he needed a different training regime over two or three preseasons to lift the capacity to the level he desires for his way of playing. The players testified to that last summer, it was a much harder regime. We subsequently ran and sprinted more last season, which gradually also improved results. Now we’ve not had a preseason training regime of the kind of wich Solskjær deemed necessary, and the capacity and hence movement is down again. And hence results. It’s not really a mystery.



Probably the worst phrased post of the thread, as statistics is exactly that which win games, namely the goals for/against statistics.



Exactly, and my eyes tell me that we’ve been half a yard off the pace against Palace, Brighton and Spurs, and the km stats confirms that my eyes are not dead wrong.

Statistics will tell you one team ran further than their opponents, made more passes, had more corners, more shots on goal, etc etc ad infinitum, but the only statistic which matters is the one that tells you that despite all the other statistics that team still lost.

 

[Cheimoon]

Statistics will tell you one team ran further than their opponents, made more passes, had more corners, more shots on goal, etc etc ad infinitum, but the only statistic which matters is the one that tells you that despite all the other statistics that team still lost.

If you think stats are useless, why come into a thread where people are discussing a particular stat?

Also, while stats don't win games (I certainly never saw a stat score a goal), they can help understand why matches played out as they did. Surely you agree with that.

 

[slored1]

Don't think this graphics really mean much to be honest. Our biggest problems are mostly related to defensive structures and offensive inefficiencies.

 

[Lentwood]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

The difference between us and Arsenal at the top is 7.2Km...which given Pogba barely moves or breaks a sweat probably means that the other ten are running their socks off!

 

[Grande]

Statistics will tell you one team ran further than their opponents, made more passes, had more corners, more shots on goal, etc etc ad infinitum, but the only statistic which matters is the one that tells you that despite all the other statistics that team still lost.

I’m not sure what that opinion has to do with anything I wrote. End results may be the only thing that matter to you as a fan. I’m quite sure that many other stats are important for managers, coaches, players, sports staff etc trying to develop so that the team may not just win one game, but more games in the future. It’s just as clear that a lot of other fans, like me, find that other stats matter as information, perhaps due to some interest in the game beyond getting the end result.

 

[sunama]

how does it compare to the rest of the league?

I wouldn’t take much from this given our pre-season. However, if thats the Same after 10 games then the would be concerning.

It was the same under Jose and it will be the same after 10 games.
Nothing changes.

 

[Jericho]

FFS. Why are our players such lazy unfit turds under every fecking manager?! This makes Ole look particularly bad with his talk about nobody out-running us when he took over, yet here we are.

Remember when our lack of km was because of Mourinho’s negative tactics? Somehow we’re running even less than his current team.

Based on that we're 7.2km behind the no.1. Is that really a significant difference? I mean somebody has to be last. Wonder where we figure in a table containing all the premier league teams.

I don't think the team is lazy, but I do think our forward players lack the footballing intelligence to see the right runs to make and they tend to prefer receiving the ball to feet, which allows the opposition to get back and forces us to have to break down 11 men behind the ball.