FAO Conan

I've had tennis elbow in my right arm for over a year caused by frenzied mouse clicking on here.

No idea what other activity could have caused it.

 

The bullying in this thread is OOO.

 

Give or take.

 

Give or take are the small margins that determine top level sporting outcomes, which is the point you have been missing Barry.

 

The prosecution rests, ma lud.

 

The prosecution has a pretty poor case then.

 

Leave Conan alone or their kid will be round to see you..he's a barbarian you know.

 

Curbishley was on about teams playing too many games in too short a time. Quoted Chelsea, and other teams. Said it was too much and the players had not got enough recovery time. A point I noticed at Crystal Palace when the players came over was their eyes and faces were stressed. Noticed it when some players are interviewed on tv straight after match. Boxers eyes are bloodshot after a fight.
The problem with sports people is keeping fit. Normally an event is targeted and the athlete aims to peak for that event. They can hold that peak for about 3 weeks then they go over and their fitness drops slightly. They can then peak again and after that they struggle. They have a break and allow their body to rest. They then target their next agenda. Footballers by the end of the season are struggling keeping their peak fitness. Therefore some struggle more than others. All depends how many games they have played and when. They have to keep their fitness levels up a long time. If Conan timed his 24 mile trip he could get faster, until he is near to as fast as he could do it he may be able to do it at that time for a few weeks then his time will lengthen. Cannot keep it at peak all the time.

 

Well I see the usual nonsense about player fitness and fatigue has emerged again and as usual two seperate issues are confused.

Do footballers have an easy life? - Yes
Can footballers play two games a week regularly. - Yes and I'm willing to bet nearly all would choose to.
Can footballers play two games a week regularly to the same high standard without niggles, injuries, cramp, general muscle fatigue - No.

When managers or players complain about tiredness I don't think they're looking for sympathy. I'm sure they're more than aware how lucky they are to be paid fortunes to kick a ball around and play golf all afternoon. But tiredness is clearly a factor in the performance of the team spanning a season. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice the connection between Manchester United being the best team in England and the fact that they can swap pretty much man for man on a match by match basis for players of equal quality.

We don't have that luxury and Flitcroft is quite within his rights to cite fatigue as a factor in our current form. You only had to be at the Derby match to notice that. The players haven't got much more they can give.

 

Conan rides a pushbike though.

 

Granted. I've lost count of the times a big lumbering centre half has kicked lumps out of me on my 90 minute cycle into work.

 

I'm sure when he rides his bike to work he's at his absolute limit too. He gives it everything he's got to the point where his muscles are cramping, his heart is leaping out of his chest, he feels like he's going to puke and he has to spend half an hour laying on the floor to recover.

Because as we all know, journeying to work on your bike is exactly the same as giving your all for 90 minutes on a football field.

 

He does 24 miles a day. On a Raleigh Chopper.

 

AND he does it every day - there and back.

Man Utd players do that, no other training and they're alright.

 

I was talking to Bobby Hassell last night. His hamstring went in the first minute of Tuesdays match, then after a couple of sprints he was done. He said it was purely down to the intensity and regularity of recent matches. Particularly when at least two of those games the Reds were dominated for 90 minutes, which is much more physically and mentally stressful than bossing a match.

 

Just an example for Conan.

I played in the York District Premier. A decent standard of football, but it was the absolute highest level I was able to play at. My best mate played centre half along side me. Now he is a classy footballer with full league representative honours, and certainly could have played higher if he’d wanted.

The difference was I had to give my absolute all every week to play at that level. I would be operating at my maximum, full stretch for tackles, full sprint to win balls, and genuinely throwing myself in to everything. He meanwhile could just coast around the pitch, operating within himself and looking like Franz Beckenbaur.

He never missed a game. No tweaks, no knocks, nothing. I trained harder than him, was fitter than him, looked after myself better. But I was dogged by injuries. Dislocated shoulder, dislocated AC joint, broken nose, broken metacarpal, broken finger, broken rib, hamstrings that would regularly tear, and finally a complete rupture of my rec fem (the big muscle on the front of your quad). This ended me playing football 2 years ago at 29 as they couldn’t reattach it. The muscle just floats and contracts in a ball on the front of my leg now, not attached to the knee tendon.

Point is, I used to give everything and despite being fitter I was always getting injured. If I’d not given everything (aside from the fact I wouldn’t have been good enough) I would never have missed a game.

Our players have been giving everything, and its taking its toll. Nothing to do with fitness, everything to do with the commitment and desire they’ve shown.

 

Conan rides a pushbike though.

 

The point I am making is that fitness and fitness with Edge is the difference. You can see a lot of teams even Man utd that some players have not got that edge. To give an instance. You have two horses that dead heat over a mile, put one on special diet to bring it up early, and it will beat the other by a length . Later the other will beat it by same as the other goes over top and the edge goes. It is not fatigue as such , but that bit in tank that has gone

 

A ruptured rectum caused by football? I think not...

 

I went for the shortened 'rec fem' version from rectus femoris to avoid such mockery!

It is one of the quad muscles, I promise...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectus_femoris_muscle