Fitness levels ........ ?

Is it just me ....... ?

Early signs (I've been to every match upto now this season) seem to me that we've gone from the (probably) fittest., high pressing, relentless, in your face team/squad in at least the division if not all 4....... to look like we''re flagging after an hour. Coupled with the fact we don't play the same high intensity, high press and in your face game.....

Again it might just be me.

Thoughts.

 

We've not got the subs though
Sibbick got replaced by Sol, all 3 forwards got replaced, palmer could be subbed on you're not comparing like for like.

 

The front 3 look to work as hard as before on pressing, and Brittain and styles, the rest not so much.

 

Thought our fitness levels were poor v qpr many were really struggling 2nd half blowing out of their arses.

 

Thought he could have utilised his subs far sooner and used all 3.

 

Plus, under Ismael’s system the pitch is effectively only half the size most of the time. But we can’t keep talking about what Ismael did, because what he ultimately did was, he left.

Nobody is going to come in and successfully replicate that style, so Schopp has to stamp his own identity on the team. I’m assuming the club looked at various data points from his previous teams before appointing him, so he should stick with what’s worked for him in the past.

 

Yep totally agree, even L1 Bolton finished way stronger. Only the first game at Cardiff we had the stronger finish.
Maybe the ones that Val took were just better than the ones left behind at getting the players fit. Don't know, but there definitely a problem..
But Schopp says in every interview, we have things to work on.

 

It’s a difficult one to describe:

Certainly the short hand explanation of Val’s style is that he played over the heads of the midfield. But it’s also true that no one worked harder than Alex (a midfielder) to make that style successful.

But you’re right; this current tactic requires more box to box running for the whole midfield and we appear to need better fitness to keep that up.

We need to accept that the success of Val’s style was that it was great value out of the limited resource he had available, not pretty to watch, but highly efficient. And if he recreates it with a slightly better squad they’re gonna storm this league.

 

Honestly, the number of subs as to influence the high enery levels knowing your going to be subbed half way thru the game.
This was a massive advantage for our style lat year.
My mate from brum text me last season saying what's the manager doing changing the front 3 so early.
He was shocked when I told him this was the norm.

 

But surely after 5-6 games of the season any professional player should be able to play 90 minutes at full fitness levels?!?

 

Absolutely, but last season they were working double the effort.
Look at the high press against Chelsea.
Wouldn't work this season.

 

The weaknesses in ability last season were made up for with intensity. More of a level playing field now we're back to 3 subs.

 

Spot on

 

But every team has the same amount of subs. But we seem to flag fitness wise all over the pitch. It's not really a critism more than an observation. Bit worrying though we've lost 4 points from the last 2 games from winning positions.

Hopefully it'll get addressed.

 

Disagree .
That's why Val was changing on 50 minutes as we hadn't the ability to press for 90 minutes like Liverpool.
He managed to work we what he had .
He wouldn't have constantly changed the front 2/3 if they weren't knackered.
Chaplin fitted into this role perfect last season.

 

The reason we dropped points at QPR was the lack of an experienced head to steady the ship.
The new coach can see this and hopefully after the break we will see the benefits.

 

Don't think experience had anything to do with it. The lads who replaced Palmer and Benson couldn't retain the ball. Give them both another 10 years in pro football and I'd be typing the same sentence. I've yet to see a natural replacement for them sat on the bench for us this season.

 

Matty James ?

 

I would say that, other than Cardiff away, we've looked more knackered than the opposition after an hour and that's usually translated into conceding goals.