True. Still, we have played 15 league games under Ole, only 1 less than under Jose this season, and there is basically no difference to where we were in the tables for distance covered and sprints respectively. Which indicates that if there is some improvement it is hardly big. Maybe the team is not prepared for the season fitness wise.
Workrate
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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True. Still, we have played 15 league games under Ole, only 1 less than under Jose this season, and there is basically no difference to where we were in the tables for distance covered and sprints respectively. Which indicates that if there is some improvement it is hardly big. Maybe the team is not prepared for the season fitness wise.
Even his worst critics weren't suggesting that if you read what was being said. But like you say, it became clear not only was he making it worse (compounding the situation) with his antics but he was not the man to fix it (take us forward).
That's why I want Ole to have the job (and now he does) but the work starts here. I can get behind this manager (he's not a tosser so it helps) and now the players will (and should) feel the full wrath of the support should they refuse to get their collective finger out.
Players fitness is players responsibility, if highly paid bunch can not motivate themselves to be fit than its their failure.
If you fail to prepare you prepare to fail.
General fitness? Sure.
Match fitness? Fitness for purpose (of whatever the strategy is)? Hardly. They need trained and coached for it.
Sometimes when you watch a game you get the impression that the players don't even train on the same pitch, the lack of understanding at times is breath taking. Then suddenly, as with Shaw's magnificent pass to Rashford, it all seems to click. I'm not sure if its energy related but its now seems to take us anything from 15 to 25 minutes at the start of a match to hit any sort of stride, and as yesterday in the second half we rarely got out of second gear.
Leaving aside the different management styles, LvG, Jose and now Ole, and the impact on players mental state, there does seem to be something underlying with the players that is not quite right, and hasn't been for some time.
"Fitness for purpose" is a good description, and it fits the team at times, not just individuals!
Excellent analysis. Completely agree.
We don't press, we don't dominate possession - we play stylistically like a mid table team, thus our stats are more in tune with that of a mid table team.
I think the first game this really became shockingly obvious to me was in our last game vs Spurs where we started fairly aggressively and the game looked like an open fight for most parts of the first half but from the 60th minute on our players seemed to barely able to run anymore. Yesterday the entire team was always one or two steps late and Watford ran circles around most of our players. Shaw and Jones seemed to be the only ones up for the fight and Shaw had cramps at the 80 minute mark. I mean what the actual feck? I could have understood that if it was the 112th minute of a CL final after a bloody fight against Liverpool but at in a normal league game after 80 minutes? Common we need to get to the level of other teams in that regard.
That’s right. It should not take very long for a group of young fit professionals to improve their fitness by even a few percent. Certainly only a few weeks with proper modern training methods.
watching liv vs spurs is a treat. Energy, good passes and most importantly ball control and link up between players. Both teams look well trained and fit for intense gameplay.
Sometimes I wonder if we lack the quality or good training or both. Mostly the last one.
Sometimes I wonder if we lack the quality or good training or both. Mostly the last one.
Just dumping these here because we rarely get individual player workrates and you can work them out from these:
Before tonight:
After tonight:
Not sure many would have had Pogba down to be our hardest working player in the CL at the start of the year!
Before tonight:
After tonight:
Not sure many would have had Pogba down to be our hardest working player in the CL at the start of the year!
Tricky to pick out the laziest twats due to differing numbers of games played.
So much for Lingard being the super hard working guy who never stops runningJust dumping these here because we rarely get individual player workrates and you can work them out from these:
Before tonight:
After tonight:
Not sure many would have had Pogba down to be our hardest working player in the CL at the start of the year!
You might want to look at the minutes played.
I did. His workrate is comparable to Mata, a man who is barely capable of sprinting
Those numbers come out at 11.75km per 90m. Dusan Tadic has covered the most ground in the competition in absolute terms and runs 11.63km per 90.
So yeah, the numbers show Lingard is clearly a very hard working player.
Defensive work rate was fine but some of the players play as if they don't know how to attack, zero movement from them.
Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Martial runs quite a bit less than any of our other attackers. Mata included.
You don’t understand maths do you? Mata’s work rate is top notch by the way. You’re confusing speed for effort. You’re just doubling down on the stupid here.
Pffft... You can prove anything with facts.
Just dumping these here because we rarely get individual player workrates and you can work them out from these:
Before tonight:
After tonight:
Not sure many would have had Pogba down to be our hardest working player in the CL at the start of the year!
All it shows is Out of our central midfielders the worst in terms of distance covered by mins played is Pogba.
Mctominay, Fred > Fellaini > Matic > Pogba
Oh dear Andy.
In fairness, I'm not 100% convinced about my maths. So I wouldn't trust me too much.
That sounds pretty likely. I was too lazy to do it. What do they work out as?
Again. No surprise there. Was watching De Jong tonight and it’s so noticeable the way he instantly runs quickly into space the second the ball leaves his boot. Pogba just fecking stands around and admires his pass. He’s good at driving runs from deep - which will fluff his stats up a bit - but he really doesn’t seem to get the basics of the position he’s supposed to be playing.
Pogba 10.5km/90 minutes
Kilometres per 90 minutes:
McTominay: 11.9
Fred: 11.83
Fellaini: 11.64
Matic: 11.39
Pogba: 10.5
Kilometres per 90 minutes:
McTominay: 11.9
Fred: 11.83
Fellaini: 11.64
Matic: 11.39
Pogba: 10.5
Surprising numbers for Pogba, that doesn't pass the eye test at all. You could put together a 45 minute compilation in the last three seasons of him walking about off the ball in no mans land jogging through games contributing nothing. I guess smarter may not translate to harder in the raw numbers.
Outrun by 4km in one half by Everton.
I guarantee if the stats on sprints were available it would be even more depressing.
Why Ole has reverted to the Mourinho team that had us mid table is beyond me. It makes me really concerned as to whether he knows what he's doing. The good decisions he made early on and becoming more few and far between.
He may not be able to do anything about it.
We are miles behind, sorry not one of our players when playing for us are what we call world class, pogba invisible, lukaku a joke, rashford when the going is good and martial a joke. The rest should not be in a utd shirt
What do you mean?
Incredible. Just after he's spoken about wanting us to be the hardest working team in the league. Embarrassing.
The first prerequisite of all the top sides is willingness to work. Unfortunately, we don’t have that and until we do, everything else is futile.
It's a reflection of the state the squad is in, for me.
When he came in we pressed high and outworked teams. Then everyone got injured because they're not fit enough, and now we don't (or don't want to).
Is it a work-rate thing or that the players need a pre-season to play the way Solskjaer wants us to? Even when we were getting results under Mourinho our running stats were very low, presumably because he didn't want us to press and our full backs didn't run (he also wanted didn't want to rotate too much) while when Ole came in there was more pressing, more movement off the ball and the full backs were really high but even early on when we were winning we regularly flagged in the latter stages and then we started to get injuries.
Essentially my hope, albeit probably slightly delusional, is that the players haven't got the type of fitness we need (i.e. they've been trained to do one thing and then expected to change mid-season to another) and that given a summer we might be able to see the pressing and energy more consistently, something similar did happen to Liverpool under Klopp in his first year (although I accept that there was a lot more evidence that he would eventually get it right).
Essentially my hope, albeit probably slightly delusional, is that the players haven't got the type of fitness we need (i.e. they've been trained to do one thing and then expected to change mid-season to another) and that given a summer we might be able to see the pressing and energy more consistently, something similar did happen to Liverpool under Klopp in his first year (although I accept that there was a lot more evidence that he would eventually get it right).
It's still disappointing that he's opted to the team he did. The second I saw the teamsheet I knew we'd struggle.
McTominay on the bench. Sanchez and Lingard who've been in poor form but at least both press and work hard also on the bench.
You replace Matic, Martial and Lukaku with those three and I guarantee we see something different. Not amazing quality but a team we can at least be proud worked as hard as the opposition.
Even at half time McTominay's replaced Fred instead of Matic.
/Edit: Lingard gets close enough to Digne to stop that goal. Martial lazily cowers and we're 3-0 down.
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Is this "downing tools" workrate?
No surprise that the FB has the most sprints.