Workrate

It's the offensive workrate we need to work on. The best forwards, the best attacking teams, they all graft in the final third. Watching the City highlights you even have Sterling in perpetual motion. Ronaldo didn't do much defending in his time here I bet he was always near the top in distance covered.

Do our players neglect that kind of work due to overly concentrating on defending?
 
Bwuk said:
Fergusons latter sides had the likes of Valencia, Fletcher, Park, Rooney, Evra, Rafael etc who would all work hard and fight for everything. I don't think theres enough of that in our side at the moment.

I actually think for a lot of sides we would be realitivley easy to play against. We give the opposition a lot of time on the ball.
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No thats true, individually we did have hard workers. It's why i have to roll my eyes when people always just want the best technically.

We do have a few but the issue is they're not our best players so it's a trade off. Except Pogba who is :drool:
 
Smores said:
To be honest that's not my recollection, we were capable of it for tactical games but most of the time we played in 2nd gear only putting real effort in when that wasn't enough.

I'm not sure i even disagree with that approach. I know this place wants games killed off within 30mins every game but it's a long season and managing energy is important.
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I don't think you have to be THE hardest working side to win the league, but I also doubt even more so that you will find any team, ever, who's won it despite being THE least hard working side.

We might have cruised controlled at times under Fergie but it would 90% of the time be because we were comfortable in winning the game in question. Where as at the moment we seem to cruise control and then struggle to even win the game...or get significantly outworked by direct title/top four rivals and end up losing the game.

The stats for the Chelsea game in terms of ground covered was the equivalent to us playing with 10 men. It's really hard to see how that works to our advantage in any way at all. Especially when the game pans out as you'd expect it might have if we'd actually played the whole of it with 10 men.
 
noodlehair said:
I don't think you have to be THE hardest working side to win the league, but I also doubt even more so that you will find any team, ever, who's won it despite being THE least hard working side.

We might have cruised controlled at times under Fergie but it would 90% of the time be because we were comfortable in winning the game in question. Where as at the moment we seem to cruise control and then struggle to even win the game...or get significantly outworked by direct title/top four rivals and end up losing the game.

The stats for the Chelsea game in terms of ground covered was the equivalent to us playing with 10 men. It's really hard to see how that works to our advantage in any way at all. Especially when the game pans out as you'd expect it might have if we'd actually played the whole of it with 10 men.
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Tbf that's more or less what happened. Hence Mkhitaryan has been missing in action ever since. Mourinho's praise for Lukaku's workrate also seems to show that not all of our (lack of) effort is down to instructions/tactics.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Tbf that's more or less what happened. Hence Mkhitaryan has been missing in action ever since. Mourinho's praise for Lukaku's workrate also seems to show that not all of our (lack of) effort is down to instructions/tactics.
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To be honest I doubt you'd look at previous teams Mourinho has managed and find similar stats. Jose makes a big deal of wanting players to give everything to help win a game, and one of the theories on here as to why he never lasts long at clubs was due to burning players out.

It just seems to be this particular set of players under him, for whatever reason. It was really frustrating on Saturday how we would push up the pitch, but then when Brighton got hold of the ball, maybe at best 3 of our players would press and position themselves properly. So all any Brighton player in possession had to do was get their head up and they would be able to find an easy ball out of the defence.

You eliminate this stat about us covering less ground and suddenly things like this have no reason to ever be a problem.
 
Treble said:
If United continue to occupy the same positions in the distance covered and sprints tables come April, the challenge for a top 4 place will be hard even though Liverpool and Arsenal look a bit worse than last season. It would take a miracle to win the title with such work rate.
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Wrote this 2 months ago. It was clear that this team does not work hard enough to compete for the league. Even top 4 might be difficult to achieve. Something is seriously wrong. And it is not on the players. They are good athletes.
 
It's not about running like headless chickens. Rather, pressing at the right time, off the ball movement, moving to block the passing lanes, attacking as a coherent unit. Most of these things are missing in our team. And the fault lies with the manager more than the players.
 
Anyone seen any stats for this from this season? I’d like to know how European football has impacted Chelsea and us.
 
Treble said:
Wrote this 2 months ago. It was clear that this team does not work hard enough to compete for the league. Even top 4 might be difficult to achieve. Something is seriously wrong. And it is not on the players. They are good athletes.
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Are they though?

Mata was never a player that presses well, neither is Mkhtraryan. Rashford and Martial are bad defensively, Lukaku's never been a workforce. Matic is not fast, to put it mildly, off the ball Pogba is simply bad. Add all of that and you have a team that can't press.

No wonder Lingard plays often.
 
FreakyJim said:
Are they though?

Mata was never a player that presses well, neither is Mkhtraryan. Rashford and Martial are bad defensively, Lukaku's never been a workforce. Matic is not fast, to put it mildly, off the ball Pogba is simply bad. Add all of that and you have a team that can't press.
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Nah, they are top athletes. It's on Jose. Besides, half of the players you mention are his signings.
 
Here are some interesting stats looking at workrate, which includes the season before Mourinho took over.

Interestingly, it looks as though we didn't work much harder under the previous manager. Average distance decreased slightly but average number of sprints increased slightly.





Can't speak for everyone else but I'm already dreaming of a day when we get a manager on board who will make these overpaid cnuts run themselves into the ground. Not too much to ask, surely?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Here are some interesting stats looking at workrate, which includes the season before Mourinho took over.

Interestingly, it looks as though we didn't work much harder under the previous manager. Average distance decreased slightly but average number of sprints increased slightly.





Can't speak for everyone else but I'm already dreaming of a day when we get a manager on board who will make these overpaid cnuts run themselves into the ground. Not too much to ask, surely?
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I do find we seem to be "unfit" compared to Liverpool/Tottenham/City. They seem able to run so much more than we can.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Here are some interesting stats looking at workrate, which includes the season before Mourinho took over.

Interestingly, it looks as though we didn't work much harder under the previous manager. Average distance decreased slightly but average number of sprints increased slightly.





Can't speak for everyone else but I'm already dreaming of a day when we get a manager on board who will make these overpaid cnuts run themselves into the ground. Not too much to ask, surely?
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It's my biggest worry, the sense of urgency and hustle is what pisses me off more than anything.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Here are some interesting stats looking at workrate, which includes the season before Mourinho took over.

Can't speak for everyone else but I'm already dreaming of a day when we get a manager on board who will make these overpaid cnuts run themselves into the ground. Not too much to ask, surely?
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I'm curious as to whether this is deliberate with Mourinho, he tends to be very calculated with details like this. Also with that twat Raymond Verheijen always criticising the likes of Klopp for running his players into the ground while praising Mourinho for properly applying the proper 'periodisation' regarding the intensity of training sessions. When I saw the stats at the beginning of the year I figured he wants us to run as little as possible while still remaining competitive, and I thought maybe this approach might've played a massive part in those alleged great injury records of his teams throughout his coaching career.
 
Henrik Larsson said:
I'm curious as to whether this is deliberate with Mourinho, he tends to be very calculated with details like this. Also with that twat Raymond Verheijen always criticising the likes of Klopp for running his players into the ground while praising Mourinho for properly applying the proper 'periodisation' regarding the intensity of training sessions. When I saw the stats at the beginning of the year I figured he wants us to run as little as possible while still remaining competitive, and I thought maybe this approach might've played a massive part in his alleged great injury records throughout his coaching career.
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Yeah, same here. Doesn’t seem to have turned out that way at United though.
 
Certainly don't think it's a case of not being fit enough, but perhaps a case of just having very passive mangers when it comes to this sort of thing. Out of all the things that annoy me about some of our football this season, it's our lack of an sort of fecking press when we lose the ball. It's like we lose the ball, then immediately retreat and fall back. It's so infuriating. I think this is something that people point to when they say that perhaps Jose has been left behind a little. Most of the top teams now press the ball. Liverpool, City and Spurs definitely do. Although Chelsea don't seem to do it too much.

I'm not even necessarily advocating for us to employ a high press (a la City), but certainly when they start encroaching into our final third. We're just so bloody passive and blasé. With the risk of incurring the wrath of some people on here, this is one of the reasons i would love to see Poch here when Jose leaves. Obviously there's other reasons, but his players run their guts out throughout games. It's great to watch, and it leads to the opposition making mistakes as opposed to waiting for them to make one.
 
Henrik Larsson said:
I'm curious as to whether this is deliberate with Mourinho, he tends to be very calculated with details like this. Also with that twat Raymond Verheijen always criticising the likes of Klopp for running his players into the ground while praising Mourinho for properly applying the proper 'periodisation' regarding the intensity of training sessions. When I saw the stats at the beginning of the year I figured he wants us to run as little as possible while still remaining competitive, and I thought maybe this approach might've played a massive part in those alleged great injury records of his teams throughout his coaching career.
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On occasion I have the same feeling, that it's deliberate. But then we have games like against Brighton or Watford last season when Mourinho where very unhappy afterwards.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, same here. Doesn’t seem to have turned out that way at United though.
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Well I don't know honestly. I also figured that the whole concept of periodisation would mean we'd have a little extra gas in the tank and could go full throttle around this time in the seasons while other teams slow down, but that doesn't seem to be the case either...
 
Henrik Larsson said:
I'm curious as to whether this is deliberate with Mourinho, he tends to be very calculated with details like this. Also with that twat Raymond Verheijen always criticising the likes of Klopp for running his players into the ground while praising Mourinho for properly applying the proper 'periodisation' regarding the intensity of training sessions. When I saw the stats at the beginning of the year I figured he wants us to run as little as possible while still remaining competitive, and I thought maybe this approach might've played a massive part in those alleged great injury records of his teams throughout his coaching career.
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It will be interesting to see if our distance stats now increase as we have fallen out of the CL. I do think Mou is right not to start the season guns blazing and that's probably why he's been able to have very settled teams previously - we had bad luck with some injuries this year at annoying times but maybe now he's starting this little media storm for this exact reason. We need to ensure we stay 2nd + hopefully challenge in the FA cup and he's trying to get every last drop of energy out of his players.
 
Do we know if his previous teams also had a similar stat?
 
tomaldinho1 said:
It will be interesting to see if our distance stats now increase as we have fallen out of the CL. I do think Mou is right not to start the season guns blazing and that's probably why he's been able to have very settled teams previously - we had bad luck with some injuries this year at annoying times but maybe now he's starting this little media storm for this exact reason. We need to ensure we stay 2nd + hopefully challenge in the FA cup and he's trying to get every last drop of energy out of his players.
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Plus the low miles/low intensity didn't stop us from having the best start to a season since 1999 or something this year.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Certainly don't think it's a case of not being fit enough, but perhaps a case of just having very passive mangers when it comes to this sort of thing. Out of all the things that annoy me about some of our football this season, it's our lack of an sort of fecking press when we lose the ball. It's like we lose the ball, then immediately retreat and fall back. It's so infuriating. I think this is something that people point to when they say that perhaps Jose has been left behind a little. Most of the top teams now press the ball. Liverpool, City and Spurs definitely do. Although Chelsea don't seem to do it too much.

I'm not even necessarily advocating for us to employ a high press (a la City), but certainly when they start encroaching into our final third. We're just so bloody passive and blasé. With the risk of incurring the wrath of some people on here, this is one of the reasons i would love to see Poch here when Jose leaves. Obviously there's other reasons, but his players run their guts out throughout games. It's great to watch, and it leads to the opposition making mistakes as opposed to waiting for them to make one.
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The pressing (or lack thereof) has been discussed to death and that’s a tactical approach that some managers use and some won’t. Whether or not we press a bit more I just want to a bit more effort getting up and down the pitch. Fullbacks constantly overlapping. Central midfielders making runs into the opposition box. That sort of thing. They should be able to do this without leaving us exposed at the back if they just worked a bit harder.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The pressing (or lack thereof) has been discussed to death and that’s a tactical approach that some managers use and some won’t. Whether or not we press a bit more I just want to a bit more effort getting up and down the pitch. Fullbacks constantly overlapping. Central midfielders making runs into the opposition box. That sort of thing. They should be able to do this without leaving us exposed at the back if they just worked a bit harder.
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Oh yeah, i know it's a tactical approach, but it has some overlap with workrate. The things you mention in your post here could be labelled as tactical. Most of our problems are down to tactical approaches from Jose as opposed to our workrate. I don't think we're an inherently lazy team, but it's more to do with the passivity of the manager. Tactics and workrate go hand in hand.

Your problem with our fullbacks not overlapping comes down to the fact that it's just something that Jose doesn't seem to like, while other managers employ it often. I suppose what I'm saying is that our problem is not really down to workrate, per se, but how we're instructed to play and the fact that he hasn't got us playing as a cohesive team. Part of the reason you don't see some of the things that you want to see is because we operate as a group of individuals; we're just not a unit. I'm almost positive some of our "workrate" problems would be overcome of he could crack this.

I suppose even as individuals they could run around a bit more, but i'm not sure to what end.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Here are some interesting stats looking at workrate, which includes the season before Mourinho took over.

Interestingly, it looks as though we didn't work much harder under the previous manager. Average distance decreased slightly but average number of sprints increased slightly.





Can't speak for everyone else but I'm already dreaming of a day when we get a manager on board who will make these overpaid cnuts run themselves into the ground. Not too much to ask, surely?
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Thanks for that. Interesting.

We covered the most distance in the games against Huddersfield away 1-2 and Southampton home 0-0. For most sprints, Bournemouth home, Watford away and Southampton home.

Games in which we barely moved, Liverpool away, Spurs at home not quite as bad.

I do think that the make-up of the squad built by 4 managers, includes far too many stationary players. Add on top of that, asking 32 year old Valencia to start every PL match when fit, with a wide-right player who drifts inside, leaving a huge space on the right-hand side.

Then you have what appears to be a large first team squad, 27 players before Tuanzebe went on loan, so 26 now, yet in reality, Carrick, Zlatan, Tuanzebe, Joel Pereira have barely featured, while Darmian, Blind, Shaw and McTominay are on about 12 starts each in all competitions, Fellaini when fit is usually a sub, Romero plays in domestic cup competitions, leaving a much smaller core group of players who get the vast majority of the mins.

I would like to see us run a lot more than we currently do but the squad for next season and the team for each match, will have to be designed with that in mind.

According to UEFA, in the CL this season, Harry Kane has covered the same total distance in just under 600 mins as Lukaku has managed in 700 mins. The Trippier v Valencia comparison is even worse than that.
 
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Scholes never had great stamina (I guess he had very poor stamina in his first few years), but I guess he had good workrate, at least compared to his stamina.

If Scholes could run, anyone could (maybe not Le Tissier or Berbatov, who should never have been picked alongside an old Scholes).
 
CL data, as follows:

AVERAGE Meters/Minute
Dortmund 118,2
Napoli 116,5
Liverpool 115,3
Basel 115,0
Maribor 113,8
Chelsea 113,7
Shakhtar Donetsk 113,4
Atlético 113,2
Man. City 113,1
Celtic 112,4
CSKA Moskva 112,3
Tottenham 112,0
Roma 111,9
Sevilla 110,6
Leipzig 110,1
Feyenoord 108,9
Paris 108,2
Qarabağ 108,2
Bayern 108,2
Porto 107,7
Sporting CP 106,9
Monaco 106,8
Juventus 106,5
Anderlecht 106,4
APOEL 106,2
Benfica 106,1
Spartak Moskva 105,1
Man. United 104,5
Barcelona 103,9
Olympiacos 103,4
Real Madrid 103,1
Beşiktaş 101,7

We're bottom of the pile again. Interesting to see the two Spanish heavy-weights alongside us, mind you.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
CL data, as follows:

AVERAGE Meters/Minute
Dortmund 118,2
Napoli 116,5
Liverpool 115,3
Basel 115,0
Maribor 113,8
Chelsea 113,7
Shakhtar Donetsk 113,4
Atlético 113,2
Man. City 113,1
Celtic 112,4
CSKA Moskva 112,3
Tottenham 112,0
Roma 111,9
Sevilla 110,6
Leipzig 110,1
Feyenoord 108,9
Paris 108,2
Qarabağ 108,2
Bayern 108,2
Porto 107,7
Sporting CP 106,9
Monaco 106,8
Juventus 106,5
Anderlecht 106,4
APOEL 106,2
Benfica 106,1
Spartak Moskva 105,1
Man. United 104,5
Barcelona 103,9
Olympiacos 103,4
Real Madrid 103,1
Beşiktaş 101,7

We're bottom of the pile again. Interesting to see the two Spanish heavy-weights alongside us, mind you.
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Thanks for your post,
This workrate thing is overrated. It is what you do with it, same goes for possession football, LvG was the proof that just having possession means nothing. Utd might not run around and press like e.g. Liverpool but we have been more effective seeing we are 2nd in the PL 5 points ahead of them.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
CL data, as follows:

AVERAGE Meters/Minute
Dortmund 118,2
Napoli 116,5
Liverpool 115,3
Basel 115,0
Maribor 113,8
Chelsea 113,7
Shakhtar Donetsk 113,4
Atlético 113,2
Man. City 113,1
Celtic 112,4
CSKA Moskva 112,3
Tottenham 112,0
Roma 111,9
Sevilla 110,6
Leipzig 110,1
Feyenoord 108,9
Paris 108,2
Qarabağ 108,2
Bayern 108,2
Porto 107,7
Sporting CP 106,9
Monaco 106,8
Juventus 106,5
Anderlecht 106,4
APOEL 106,2
Benfica 106,1
Spartak Moskva 105,1
Man. United 104,5
Barcelona 103,9
Olympiacos 103,4
Real Madrid 103,1
Beşiktaş 101,7

We're bottom of the pile again. Interesting to see the two Spanish heavy-weights alongside us, mind you.
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That's actually a really interesting statistic. For a long time I've been under the belief that we don't have enough movement as a team, and can often be quite static. But seeing the likes of Barca, Madrid, Juve and Bayern all so low makes me think maybe it's less important than its made out to be. Perhaps the teams mentioned just have smarter movement than the teams nearer the top of the list, or maybe it's entirely to do with the teams set up.
I wonder if the respective league stats are similar.
 
In terms of metres/minute, our individual CL breakdown is as follows (in order):

Lingard = 135m
Mkhitaryan = 133m
Mata = 132m
Matic = 129m
Hererra = 129m
McTominay = 128m
Fellaini = 124m
Pogba = 122m
Blind = 117m
Rashford = 116m
Darmian = 111m
Young = 110m
Sanchez = 105m
Smalling = 104m
Lindelof = 103m
Valencia = 103m
Martial = 102m
Lukaku = 100m
Bailly = 88m

A few things stand out. No surprise that Jesse tops the table. Our fullbacks are showing their age. Mata is not. Martial, Sanchez and Lukaku need to take their fingers out. The huge difference in the stats between them and the likes of Jesse/Mata/Mikhi paints them in a pretty dim light.
 
So Pogba isn't actually lazy and Sanchez a workhorse then?
 
Cassidy said:
So Pogba isn't actually lazy and Sanchez a workhorse then?
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Well Pogba is the least hard working CM in our squad and Sanchez works harder than the bloke whose place he took in the team (Martial) so the stereotypes aren't completely without merit. Have to say the Sanchez stats are a surprise though. Thought he'd be higher up that table.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
In terms of metres/minute, our individual CL breakdown is as follows (in order):

Lingard = 135m
Mkhitaryan = 133m
Mata = 132m
Matic = 129m
Hererra = 129m
McTominay = 128m
Fellaini = 124m
Pogba = 122m
Blind = 117m
Rashford = 116m
Darmian = 111m
Young = 110m
Sanchez = 105m
Smalling = 104m
Lindelof = 103m
Valencia = 103m
Martial = 102m
Lukaku = 100m
Bailly = 88m

A few things stand out. No surprise that Jesse tops the table. Our fullbacks are showing their age. Mata is not. Martial, Sanchez and Lukaku need to take their fingers out. The huge difference in the stats between them and the likes of Jesse/Mata/Mikhi paints them in a pretty dim light.
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Martial problem in a nutshell, just not active enough, only wants to play with the ball at feet. Lukaku had a spell earlier in the season when he was very static in his play, that has improved recently and he has been much better for it, I think a individual breakdown of his numbers since the new year would show that trend.

Valencia stands out as well, have had the feeling that his stamina is not what it was. His numbers may be down slightly due to tactics, conservative use of the full backs but he is 32 and the drop will happen.

Sanchez is a limited sample size but given his reputation as a workhorse you would expect it to be higher. Lingard top should shock no-one, big part of his game and one of the reasons he is becoming so important. Pogba is bottom of the midfield group.
 
Bobski said:
Martial problem in a nutshell, just not active enough, only wants to play with the ball at feet. Lukaku had a spell earlier in the season when he was very static in his play, that has improved recently and he has been much better for it, I think a individual breakdown of his numbers since the new year would show that trend.

Valencia stands out as well, have had the feeling that his stamina is not what it was. His numbers may be down slightly due to tactics, conservative use of the full backs but he is 32 and the drop will happen.

Sanchez is a limited sample size but given his reputation as a workhorse you would expect it to be higher. Lingard top should shock no-one, big part of his game and one of the reasons he is becoming so important. Pogba is bottom of the midfield group.
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Sanchez's work rate is same even if you take 100s of games as a sample size. He covers less than 10 Kms per game which is less than Ozil who covers more than 10 Kms regularly. It's his high intensity runs that makes the difference.

These are just stats without much context. You should also consider high intensity sprints, positions players play, role they play.
 
roonster09 said:
Sanchez's work rate is same even if you take 100s of games as a sample size. He covers less than 10 Kms per game which is less than Ozil who covers more than 10 Kms regularly. It's his high intensity runs that makes the difference.

These are just stats without much context. You should also consider high intensity sprints, positions players play, role they play.
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True. CB's will always cover less ground than CM. A lone striker needs to hold his position more than attacking midfielders. Full backs should be very high up for sprints. Need to compare like for like to see the context in it.

Sanchez is very showy in his workrate. I am not always sure he is the smartest in how he uses his energy though.
 
Sanchez is well known for being poor in this regard. At Arsenal the running stats were posted in the dressing room and he was supposedly always at the bottom. I expect this will become a serious issue as he moves into his 30s and declines physically.

I would be interested in seeing how our players compare with other teams players in the same position. Our full backs especially seem low but maybe all the best full backs don't actually cover that much ground because they have to do a lot of sprints.
 
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It depends how you look at workrate and how a team is set out to play. De bruyne and Silva are always on the move and make space for themselves to receive the ball, where as our midfielders are always sat watching their man.

Maybe this is Mourinho's way, but a player who is always on the move is harder to mark. Pogba should be our midfielder who is always on the move and wanting the ball, but in a 2 man midfield this do not suit him. I am waiting to see the team sheet on Saturday as I feel there will be a few man markers in the side.
 
Bobski said:
Martial problem in a nutshell, just not active enough, only wants to play with the ball at feet. Lukaku had a spell earlier in the season when he was very static in his play, that has improved recently and he has been much better for it, I think a individual breakdown of his numbers since the new year would show that trend.

Valencia stands out as well, have had the feeling that his stamina is not what it was. His numbers may be down slightly due to tactics, conservative use of the full backs but he is 32 and the drop will happen.

Sanchez is a limited sample size but given his reputation as a workhorse you would expect it to be higher. Lingard top should shock no-one, big part of his game and one of the reasons he is becoming so important. Pogba is bottom of the midfield group.
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As someone else has also pointed out, it can be deceiving, Sanchez actually doesn't track back an awful lot and thus his total distance covered was lower than Ozils at Arsenal. Sanchez however does more sprints and more closing down of players in his zone.

EDIT: Actually I am assuming he does more sprints, need to see the stats for that as could be wrong, you never know. Ozils reputation proceeds him.
 
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