Ivan Katalinic's 'tache Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 (edited) Arsene Wenger has flagged how unfair the lack of rest between games has been for some teams, from Boxing Day, and called it the worst he's seen in 20 years. Unsurprisingly, we come off a clear worst but having nearly half the amount of rest time Chelsea had is ludicrous. I wonder if it's time the Premier League started pushing back at Sky regarding some of the ridiculous scheduling of their televised games? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38491151 Edited 3 January, 2017 by Ivan Katalinic's 'tache Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Garrett Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Gary Lineker @GaryLineker 19h19 hours ago If you think this PL holiday fixture list is mad, here's next year: December 16/20/23/26/30 January 1. World Cup follows. Utterly Bonkers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batman Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 (edited) but we had a winter break leading up to 2 home games (with an away game just 30 miles up the road before that) still looked way off the pace against spurs. WBA played the same defence throughout (with minimal changes in their team) and they had a 38 year old (or what ever) playing Edited 3 January, 2017 by Batman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Garrett Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 but we had a winter break leading up to 2 home games (with an away game just 30 miles up the road before that) still looked way off the pace against spurs. WBA played the same defence throughout (with minimal changes in their team) and they had a 38 year old (or what ever) playing Quite a few teams have barely rotated, we rotate because Puel doesn't know his best side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disconnect Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 I thought it was fairly obvious that Puel is being told he has to give a lot of game time to the youngsters - as they always make a point via social media of all the 'academy graduates' playing. Yes, the style of football is pretty boring, but I think in some respects the rotation policy is forced upon the manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fitzhugh Fella Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 All this waffle about the players being tired at Everton yesterday (This morning's Guardian gave that as an excuse) is a red herring. Romeu was the only outfield player to play all 3 matches the whole 90 mins and he had just had a fortnight off as he missed the Bournemouth game. The only two other players who played more than 2 matches were Rodriguez who played the equivalent of 2 matches and 20 mins (and let's face it his season has hardly been arduous) and Ward-Prowse who played for 2 matches and 15 mins. Fatigue should not have come into especially as two of the matches were at home and we had 10 days off prior to the Spurs game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shurlock Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Quite a few teams have barely rotated, we rotate because Puel doesn't know his best side. What is our best XI (granted our back four is pretty easy to pick)? Arguably there is a much of a muchness to our squad and little drop off in quality beyond our best XI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batman Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 What is our best XI (granted our back four is pretty easy to pick)? Arguably there is a much of a muchness to our best XI. here is mine. Forster Cedric Fonte VvD Bertrand Clasie Romeu Boufal Davis Tadic Austin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfahaji Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 here is mine. Forster Cedric Fonte VvD Bertrand Clasie Romeu Boufal Davis Tadic Austin Would agree, perhaps with Hojbjerg over Clasie (though by no means definite). The problem is that neither of these two really seem good enough, and while Davis is decent he doesn't offer the all round game and goal threat that you want from the most attacking CM. Add to that that Austin is injured, Tadic is struggling to regain his early season form, and Forster has looked unconvincing for a long time, and you can see why we're having trouble winning matches at the moment even without rotation, regardless of the manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shurlock Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Would agree, perhaps with Hojbjerg over Clasie (though by no means definite). The problem is that neither of these two really seem good enough, and while Davis is decent he doesn't offer the all round game and goal threat that you want from the most attacking CM. Add to that that Austin is injured, Tadic is struggling to regain his early season form, and Forster has looked unconvincing for a long time, and you can see why we're having trouble winning matches at the moment even without rotation, regardless of the manager. Agree with all that; plus Batman's side which isn't bad lacks pace. You can see why Redmond -for all his weaknesses- gets picked as we don't have many players who can counter and stretch sides. Long can do it but less so with the ball at his feet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitey Grandad Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 All this waffle about the players being tired at Everton yesterday (This morning's Guardian gave that as an excuse) is a red herring. Romeu was the only outfield player to play all 3 matches the whole 90 mins and he had just had a fortnight off as he missed the Bournemouth game. The only two other players who played more than 2 matches were Rodriguez who played the equivalent of 2 matches and 20 mins (and let's face it his season has hardly been arduous) and Ward-Prowse who played for 2 matches and 15 mins. Fatigue should not have come into especially as two of the matches were at home and we had 10 days off prior to the Spurs game. On the one hand we are told that players need to play games in order to get match-fit. Then we are told that they aren't up to playing lots of games. When there are a lot of games io a row then it's even more essential that you keep a settled side, especially the defence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusic Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Does Pulis have a point here? http://www.teamtalk.com/news/pulis-tired-two-games-in-three-days-is-nothing Puel has said for the whole season we cannot play the same team every 3 days but then VVD for example never gets a rest and Romeu rarely does either so it is possible. Lallana covered the most ground of any player in the PL on both 31st Dec AND 2nd Jan. If you tell them they are tired or they cannot play twice in quick succession then its a negative message. Puel even said our style of play was specifically such to combat this, ie keeping the ball, but as soon as we face a decent opponent we don't even do that very well. A lot of jumbled thinking. http://www.teamtalk.com/news/pulis-tired-two-games-in-three-days-is-nothing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisenberg Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Does Pulis have a point here? http://www.teamtalk.com/news/pulis-tired-two-games-in-three-days-is-nothing Puel has said for the whole season we cannot play the same team every 3 days but then VVD for example never gets a rest and Romeu rarely does either so it is possible. Lallana covered the most ground of any player in the PL on both 31st Dec AND 2nd Jan. If you tell them they are tired or they cannot play twice in quick succession then its a negative message. Puel even said our style of play was specifically such to combat this, ie keeping the ball, but as soon as we face a decent opponent we don't even do that very well. A lot of jumbled thinking. http://www.teamtalk.com/news/pulis-tired-two-games-in-three-days-is-nothing Modern players are super fit, they can and want to be playing regularly From the horses mouth = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/12/06/jose-fonte-reveals-frustration-claude-puels-southampton-rotation/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitey Grandad Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Modern players are super fit, they can and want to be playing regularly From the horses mouth = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/12/06/jose-fonte-reveals-frustration-claude-puels-southampton-rotation/ Both he and Cedric did ok during the Euro 2016 finals. 7 games in 26 days and every one an away fixture. (Yes, I know they didn't play every game) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eurosaint Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38491151 This has been said before but clearly many do not believe it, it is not 'fitness' per se that is the problem but rather intensity and concentration ! Note that we have started well in each of the last 3 games but finished badly, penalties and red cards have come more readily than before (intensity and concentration) ! Wenger is whinging about recovery time, Allardyce has called for the 'fixtures guy' to be sacked, Klopp and Guardiola both refused to discuss performance because of player fatigue. All of their teams have had more recovery time than Saints (see attached table) so do we choose to ignore the experienced experts and blame only our manager and players ? Whilst I personally do not consider this to be the only factor, I don't think that we should discount it completely ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Garrett Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Is our fitness in general to question? Not the first time we've seemed to be outrun on the pitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatlesaint Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 A Gordon Strachan trained team would have had no issue with our Xmas schedule. He had them the fittest I have ever seen from a Saints squad in nearly 40 years of watching them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Garrett Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 A Gordon Strachan trained team would have had no issue with our Xmas schedule. He had them the fittest I have ever seen from a Saints squad in nearly 40 years of watching them. Surely the squad were fitter under Poch? They were absolutely on it every game, just tired towards the end of the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Troy Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 All this waffle about the players being tired at Everton yesterday (This morning's Guardian gave that as an excuse) is a red herring. Romeu was the only outfield player to play all 3 matches the whole 90 mins and he had just had a fortnight off as he missed the Bournemouth game. The only two other players who played more than 2 matches were Rodriguez who played the equivalent of 2 matches and 20 mins (and let's face it his season has hardly been arduous) and Ward-Prowse who played for 2 matches and 15 mins. Fatigue should not have come into especially as two of the matches were at home and we had 10 days off prior to the Spurs game. odd one this - agree with what you are saying but you are almost arguing that we are having to rotate the team more than others because of the fixtures which brings its own problems. No way its our only problem at the moment but cant argue that it will have no impact at all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandwichsaint Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Gary Lineker @GaryLineker 19h19 hours ago If you think this PL holiday fixture list is mad, here's next year: December 16/20/23/26/30 January 1. World Cup follows. Utterly Bonkers. Sat16th Sat 23rd Boxing Day football on the Tuesday Sat 30th NYD fixtures on the Monday FA Cup 3 on Sat 6th Jan This would have seemed a completely 'normal' set of fixtures at one time. Two flies in the PL ointment: the games will be moved all over the shop for TV, and the completely superfluous round of games shoe-horned in on Wed 20th Dec. Clearly the 'fairest' option would be to have every team play on the same dates and move the TV games to 13-00/17-00/20-00 or whatever on the scheduled day. Double clearly this won't happen - TV pays the piper and they want games spread right through the holiday period. Best get our whinging in now and then suck it up, it's what every other team has to do, just might feel a little bit sorry if a smaller team qualifies for the Lge cup SFs though.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S-Clarke Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 It's clearly a bit screwed, but it's always the same. I personally think this will be used as a convenient excuse for us to use, but we rotated the hell out of the squad to try and avoid this. I think it's bitten us on our arse as we're clearly not as fresh/fit as we should be because our players don't play every week. WBA/Spurs for example rotated their squad a little, not too much, and won both of the games. Their wins were born out of a cohesive team unit after playing together for a decent period of time. First team every week from now on should be: Forster Cedric - Fonte - Virgil - Bertrand Romeu Hojbjerg Clasie Tadic Remond Jay Couple of positions up for debate - Clasie. If we could replace him with a Sigurdsson type player - perfect. Jay - is he right for a lone role? I don't think he is personally, he's better playing support to a 'big man'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSAINT Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 It's clearly a bit screwed, but it's always the same. I personally think this will be used as a convenient excuse for us to use, but we rotated the hell out of the squad to try and avoid this. I think it's bitten us on our arse as we're clearly not as fresh/fit as we should be because our players don't play every week. WBA/Spurs for example rotated their squad a little, not too much, and won both of the games. Their wins were born out of a cohesive team unit after playing together for a decent period of time. First team every week from now on should be: Forster Cedric - Fonte - Virgil - Bertrand Romeu Hojbjerg Clasie Tadic Remond Jay Couple of positions up for debate - Clasie. If we could replace him with a Sigurdsson type player - perfect. Jay - is he right for a lone role? I don't think he is personally, he's better playing support to a 'big man'. What's interesting about formations is we are really lacking in strikers if we revert to the diamond & we only have 3 wingers if we stick with 4-3-3. (Tadic/Redmond/Sims). We really need Tadic to find his form again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatlesaint Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Surely the squad were fitter under Poch? They were absolutely on it every game, just tired towards the end of the season. I dont believe so, they used to tire in the last 15-20 mins, with WGS they just kept on and on :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfahaji Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 I dont believe so, they used to tire in the last 15-20 mins, with WGS they just kept on and on :-) WGS put a lot of emphasis on fitness, and it showed with the number of goals we scored late on. However, I don't think our style of play was as high tempo or with anywhere near as much pressing as we played under Pochettino. I'd say under Pochettino we had the fittest team, it's just that even a super fit side struggled to keep up the necessary intensity of that style for 90 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Give it to Ron Posted 3 January, 2017 Share Posted 3 January, 2017 Arsene will have a lot more to moan about 2 down at B'miuth Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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