Sheffield United (Away) Saturday 26 December

[RuffRob]

6 minutes ago, Palfy said:

But that’s the same for all clubs it’s a fairytale to think it’s just Everton players that get tired, when the big games come up you play your best team, it’s more important to try and take points off the likes City because if you can keep them below you you’re gonna have a fighting chance to get into the top four, DCL Richarlison Doucoure Iwobi and Gylfi will be gagging to play in that game that’s what good players want to be play in the big games, not sat at home or on the bench. 

I think your missing the whole point of resting player against City then - City have such a strong squad they can change have their team out against a tired Everton team (and they most likely will) so odds are we loose point even if we put all our best players on the pitch and they play their hearts out and leave it all on the pitch.  However, this weakens us for the hammers game, so increases the change of us dropping points against them. We rest a few key players and it increases our chances of taking 3 points from the hammers. 

Those player may be 'gagging' to play - but that doesn't make the hard work from 4 or 5 games just disappear out of their legs for tomorrows game and then more importantly for a Hammers game a few days later. 

Everton are 5/1 to beat City and they are 1/2 on to win. So taking any rose tinted Everton glasses off, the smart money says have little chance of picking up 3 points in this game (and those odds will be on us playing our 'best' team). We are unlikely to win this game so way make tired players more tired - other than pride? 

Out best opportunity to take the most points from the next two games is to rest players against City and have fresher legs against a tired Hammers team. 

Even though we are sitting second we don't realistically have a squad good enough to be a top 4.

Unfortunately, injuries wise - we might not really have much of option to rest the players that really need the rest in any case. 

 

[Bailey]

19 minutes ago, Bill said:

In reply to a couple of posts ......  an hour and half of football every 3 days is not tiring believe me, I've played two games on a saturday, two more on the Sunday and still gone to five aside training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I could have found a match being played under floodlight I'd tried to play there as well.

Not playing your best eleven is fine when you have £50.000 subtitutes sitting on the bench, we can't afford to do that because if we did that we would lose games and points, its swings and roundabouts whether you play with a weakened team or a few players who feel a bit.  The only way they get tired is  having to carry all the money they get to the Bank.

Its not that the players can't play 2, 3 or 5 games a week, its that they won't be at their best as the end of the run of games, especially not at the elite level where fine margins matter. 

City are in relatively the same boat but they have a bigger squad and less injuries. 

I don't think the same level of rotation is needed as some have said, especially in certain positions, but some will if they are to be expected to play to their best.

[RuffRob]

16 minutes ago, Bill said:

In reply to a couple of posts ......  an hour and half of football every 3 days is not tiring believe me, I've played two games on a saturday, two more on the Sunday and still gone to five aside training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I could have found a match being played under floodlight I'd tried to play there as well.

Really!!! you sound like you know what you talking about when it comes to professional sport. 

 

 

[Palfy]

18 minutes ago, RuffRob said:

I think your missing the whole point of resting player against City then - City have such a strong squad they can change have their team out against a tired Everton team (and they most likely will) so odds are we loose point even if we put all our best players on the pitch and they play their hearts out and leave it all on the pitch.  However, this weakens us for the hammers game, so increases the change of us dropping points against them. We rest a few key players and it increases our chances of taking 3 points from the hammers. 

Those player may be 'gagging' to play - but that doesn't make the hard work from 4 or 5 games just disappear out of their legs for tomorrows game and then more importantly for a Hammers game a few days later. 

Everton are 5/1 to beat City and they are 1/2 on to win. So taking any rose tinted Everton glasses off, the smart money says have little chance of picking up 3 points in this game (and those odds will be on us playing our 'best' team). We are unlikely to win this game so way make tired players more tired - other than pride? 

Out best opportunity to take the most points from the next two games is to rest players against City and have fresher legs against a tired Hammers team. 

Even though we are sitting second we don't realistically have a squad good enough to be a top 4.

Unfortunately, injuries wise - we might not really have much of option to rest the players that really need the rest in any case. 

 

This rest thing is absolutely rubbish players and teams are better for the more time they have together on the pitch, the table doesn’t lie we are in the position we are because of playing the best team available to us every game, your advocating not trying to win the City game because you believe no matter what team we put out we aren’t good enough, yet we have more chance of taking 3 points against WHU, luckily we didn’t adopt that attitude against Chelsea Leicester and Arsenal, we are good enough to beat any team in this league but only as long as we give it our best shot. 

[RuffRob]

35 minutes ago, Palfy said:

This rest thing is absolutely rubbish players and teams are better for the more time they have together on the pitch, the table doesn’t lie we are in the position we are because of playing the best team available to us every game, your advocating not trying to win the City game because you believe no matter what team we put out we aren’t good enough, yet we have more chance of taking 3 points against WHU, luckily we didn’t adopt that attitude against Chelsea Leicester and Arsenal, we are good enough to beat any team in this league but only as long as we give it our best shot. 

You sound a bit silly now saying there is no such thing as players getting tired after prolonged period of games twice a week and thus squad rotation to assist in combating player fatigue it the stuff of fairytails. Have all the top clubs who win everything season after season with large squads of great player somehow fucked up by adopting this principle?

We are not "good enough to beat any team in this league as long as we give it our best shot" - if anything is absolute rubbish that it -its total naïve. That just like a parent saying to their kids - "if you try really hard, you can be whatever you want to be". Blinkered thinking. 

We beat Chelsea, Leicester and Arsenal after they all come off a tiring 6week period of two games a week (European football) - coincidence perhaps, but I called it that we got lucky with playing those teams in this period. Not sure why I would I adopt the attitude of resting our best players when we have not had a hectic period of football. 

I am for making the most of any luck we have this season,  I don't really believe we are the second best team in the country, and perhaps the table does lie a little bit - I always think looking at goal generally different give you a good reflection of where a team really is. 

like I have said I am not overly an optimist or a defeatist - just a realist. 

 

[Matt]

8 hours ago, Bill said:

In reply to a couple of posts ......  an hour and half of football every 3 days is not tiring believe me, I've played two games on a saturday, two more on the Sunday and still gone to five aside training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I could have found a match being played under floodlight I'd tried to play there as well.

Not playing your best eleven is fine when you have £50.000 subtitutes sitting on the bench, we can't afford to do that because if we did we would lose games and points, its swings and roundabouts whether you play with a weakened team or a few players who feel a bit tired.  The only way they get tired is  having to carry all the money they get to the Bank.

You were a professional footballer in the modern game Bill? Because if not, your personal experience doesn’t remotely compare to what the professional players go through in terms of work rate and effort. 

[Hafnia]

Let's be honest lads, these players will be tired but at the same time the question is.... Do you play someone with 40% less quality over a player who will be 20% less due to fatigue? No.

The reality is a good few of our players aren't fit enough Vs other sides. I've thought this for a while. 

[Bill]

Another reply to several posts ....... It doesn't matter if I played the game professionally or not. 

Who do you think should get more tired, A professional Athlete who has the best Coaches, the best Doctors, the best Dieticians, in fact the best of everything, or the fella that's got none of them but just a bicycle to pedal from one venue to another with his boots hanging around his neck.

Play one game then bike it halfway across town to the next venue.  So although I only played amateur I gave everything in every game I played, and as I have said I would have played more if I was needed. I never ever felt tired and I couldn't get enough. 

[Hafnia]

Lads, bit of respect going amiss here. 

Bill is talking about a bygone era where blokes would play on shocking pitches, waterlogged heavy football's playing in boots that weigh 7 times heavier than today's with no sport science.... Taking tackles that would be classed as assault now.

In comparison today's footballers are treated like thoroughbred race horses.  Many of today's footballers look for excuses rather than dig in.

We were played off the park by man United a few weeks ago who had an away game in Europe 2 days before... Let's not get too precious. 

 

[Palfy]

12 hours ago, RuffRob said:

You sound a bit silly now saying there is no such thing as players getting tired after prolonged period of games twice a week and thus squad rotation to assist in combating player fatigue it the stuff of fairytails. Have all the top clubs who win everything season after season with large squads of great player somehow fucked up by adopting this principle?

We are not "good enough to beat any team in this league as long as we give it our best shot" - if anything is absolute rubbish that it -its total naïve. That just like a parent saying to their kids - "if you try really hard, you can be whatever you want to be". Blinkered thinking. 

We beat Chelsea, Leicester and Arsenal after they all come off a tiring 6week period of two games a week (European football) - coincidence perhaps, but I called it that we got lucky with playing those teams in this period. Not sure why I would I adopt the attitude of resting our best players when we have not had a hectic period of football. 

I am for making the most of any luck we have this season,  I don't really believe we are the second best team in the country, and perhaps the table does lie a little bit - I always think looking at goal generally different give you a good reflection of where a team really is. 

like I have said I am not overly an optimist or a defeatist - just a realist. 

 

How many players did Leicester rotate when they won the league they done it with minimal rotation, compared to the bigger clubs, that’s because the clubs like Leicester and us don’t have the depth of squads to replace players with players of equal ability, yet Leicester proved you wrong that fit players can play as many games as required and win the ultimate prize, we beat those teams because we were the better team on the day not because they had played a game in mid week and were tired, you are completely contradicting your own argument that teams rotate players if there tired, yet those 3 teams didn’t with the squads available to them, now who seems silly or are you more Knowledgeable than there managers. And also stop miss quoting what I say by changing the context of why I said something, that is miss quoting to make your argument look better, very poor debating. 

[markjazzbassist]

1 hour ago, Palfy said:

How many players did Leicester rotate when they won the league they done it with minimal rotation, compared to the bigger clubs, that’s because the clubs like Leicester and us don’t have the depth of squads to replace players with players of equal ability, yet Leicester proved you wrong that fit players can play as many games as required and win the ultimate prize, we beat those teams because we were the better team on the day not because they had played a game in mid week and were tired, you are completely contradicting your own argument that teams rotate players if there tired, yet those 3 teams didn’t with the squads available to them, now who seems silly or are you more Knowledgeable than there managers. And also stop miss quoting what I say by changing the context of why I said something, that is miss quoting to make your argument look better, very poor debating. 

yeah, i'm seeing carlo do this too, same 11 and just go.  small rotation here/there due to injury or players coming back to fitness, but pretty much if you're healthy you are playing.  

[Bailey]

1 hour ago, Palfy said:

How many players did Leicester rotate when they won the league they done it with minimal rotation, compared to the bigger clubs, that’s because the clubs like Leicester and us don’t have the depth of squads to replace players with players of equal ability, yet Leicester proved you wrong that fit players can play as many games as required and win the ultimate prize, we beat those teams because we were the better team on the day not because they had played a game in mid week and were tired, you are completely contradicting your own argument that teams rotate players if there tired, yet those 3 teams didn’t with the squads available to them, now who seems silly or are you more Knowledgeable than there managers. And also stop miss quoting what I say by changing the context of why I said something, that is miss quoting to make your argument look better, very poor debating. 

Part of the reason Leicester won that year was because they weren't in the cups and didn't have the European games the other sides had.

[markjazzbassist]

Just now, Bailey said:

Part of the reason Leicester won that year was because they weren't in the cups and didn't have the European games the other sides had.

neither do we!

[Bailey]

Just to add some more info to the Leicester example:

Leicester 43 games

Arsenal 54 games

Spurs 53 games

Man C 59 games

 

 

[Bailey]

4 minutes ago, markjazzbassist said:

neither do we!

This season is very different to normal seasons! 

[Palfy]

1 minute ago, Bailey said:

Part of the reason Leicester won that year was because they weren't in the cups and didn't have the European games the other sides had.

Well that proves my point that rotation doesn’t happen because of tiredness, yet City Liverpool and Chelsea did rotate there squads during European cup games and domestic cup games, which proves that playing the same team week in and week out unless of injuries is the best way to go because you become more of team the more you work together, it could be said that the 3 teams mentioned didn’t do as well because they didn’t go for a settled team with constant chopping and changing, where Leicester didn’t do that. 

[Palfy]

9 minutes ago, Bailey said:

Just to add some more info to the Leicester example:

Leicester 43 games

Arsenal 54 games

Spurs 53 games

Man C 59 games

 

 

Bailey if you’re suggesting that Leicester only won the league because they played less games then your delusional, I would say Leicester players played as many games as the players in the teams you mentioned because they didn’t rotate they put the same team out every week unless of injuries. 

[London Blue]

11 minutes ago, Palfy said:

Well that proves my point that rotation doesn’t happen because of tiredness, yet City Liverpool and Chelsea did rotate there squads during European cup games and domestic cup games, which proves that playing the same team week in and week out unless of injuries is the best way to go because you become more of team the more you work together, it could be said that the 3 teams mentioned didn’t do as well because they didn’t go for a settled team with constant chopping and changing, where Leicester didn’t do that. 

 

3 minutes ago, Palfy said:

Bailey if you’re suggesting that Leicester only won the league because they played less games then your delusional, I would say Leicester players played as many games as the players in the teams you mentioned because they didn’t rotate they put the same team out every week unless of injuries. 

 Leicester have made 7 changes to the team that played Man Utd.

Just saying........

[Bailey]

1 hour ago, Palfy said:

Bailey if you’re suggesting that Leicester only won the league because they played less games then your delusional, I would say Leicester players played as many games as the players in the teams you mentioned because they didn’t rotate they put the same team out every week unless of injuries. 

No I clearly said it was part of the reason. It helped that they also had very few injuries, less going away on international duty, less travelling etc etc. It also helps that they had the energizer bunny of Kante in midfield who doesn't do tired.

As an example, Vardy played 3210 minutes that season in all comps. I think it was only the end of the season that he played for England. Bar the x-mas period, he would have mainly played every weekend and had his feet up midweek.

Aguero played 3523 minutes plus travelling to and from South America and various European locations. 

Kane played 4027 minutes, also playing in the week and weekend in Europe. 

Slightly further down the scale, Giroud and Sanchez played 3373 and 3289 minutes respectively but also would have been racking up the miles and minutes in Europe and for the national team. 

It was a massive help for them to not have to play midweek. I have no doubt that they wouldn't have won the league had they had the same schedule as the rest of their competitors. 

 

[Palfy]

2 minutes ago, Bailey said:

No I clearly said it was part of the reason. It helped that they also had very few injuries, less going away on international duty, less travelling etc etc. It also helps that they had the energizer bunny of Kante in midfield who doesn't do tired.

As an example, Vardy played 3210 minutes that season in all comps. I think it was only the end of the season that he played for England. Bar the x-mas period, he would have mainly played every weekend and had his feet up midweek.

Aguero played 3523 minutes plus travelling to and from South America and various European locations. 

Kane played 4027 minutes, also playing in the week and weekend in Europe. 

Slightly further down the scale, Giroud and Sanchez played 3373 and 3289 minutes respectively but also would have been racking up the miles and minutes in Europe and for the national team. 

It was a massive help for them to not have to play midweek. I have no doubt that they wouldn't have won the league had they had the same schedule as the rest of their competitors. 

 

I have no doubt they would have won the CL that season if they were in it, now that’s as ridiculous as you saying that if they had the same schedule as there competitors they wouldn’t have won the league, remember Bailey they were favourites with pundits and bookies to go down that season, so if winning the league is based on games and hours played and not the better football why didn’t the teams who played roughly the same amount of games and were expected to finish higher not push Spurs Arsenal City Utd Liverpool and Chelsea into 12th- 18th

[Matt]

It’s kinda bizarre to read all this. If you don’t think fatigue plays a part, fair enough. You’re categorically wrong but never mind 

[Palfy]

4 minutes ago, Matt said:

It’s kinda bizarre to read all this. If you don’t think fatigue plays a part, fair enough. You’re categorically wrong but never mind 

Fatigue or not in the big games you play the best team available to you regardless of tired or not, these guys are honed athletes quite capable of playing to the demands of the league. 

[Matt]

16 minutes ago, Palfy said:

Fatigue or not in the big games you play the best team available to you regardless of tired or not, these guys are honed athletes quite capable of playing to the demands of the league. 

Of course you play your best team, provided they’re fit to play. It’s that simple. 

[Shukes]

This is the modern game. Players suffer much more from fatigue than they used to. Players get paid so much these days, that let’s be honest.... some play for money rather than enjoyment.

Years ago footballers loved to play and would put their bodies through more. 
 

It’s like becoming a doctor, so they want to heal people? Most just want a great career. Police force, Army... remember people suing the Army because their son got shot while in Afghanistan. We live in a different world these days.

I prefer the old days when players could play three games a week each week. When tackles were tackles, when a slight pull was something that would be looked at after the game.

[Bill]

4 hours ago, London Blue said:

 

 Leicester have made 7 changes to the team that played Man Utd.

Just saying........

And have dropped points.   Just saying. 

[London Blue]

5 minutes ago, Bill said:

And have dropped points.   Just saying. 

But they did rotate, and they came from behind to claim a point, away from home.

Point made I think.

 

[Palfy]

1 hour ago, Matt said:

Of course you play your best team, provided they’re fit to play. It’s that simple. 

Exactly and being tired doesn’t fall into the bracket of being unfit to play. 

[Palfy]

1 minute ago, London Blue said:

But they did rotate, and they came from behind to claim a point, away from home.

Point made I think.

 

And if they played there best team they could have walked away with all 3 points. 

[Matt]

Just now, Palfy said:

Exactly and being tired doesn’t fall into the bracket of being unfit to play. 

Yes it does, they’re not robots. 

[Bill]

2 minutes ago, London Blue said:

But they did rotate, and they came from behind to claim a point, away from home.

Point made I think.

 

2 points dropped I think.