New Year rest time between games

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

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

[Saint Garrett]

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.

[Batman]

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

[Saint Garrett]

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.

[disconnect]

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.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

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.

[shurlock]

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.

[Batman]

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

[mrfahaji]

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.

[shurlock]

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.

[Whitey Grandad]

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.

[Dusic]

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

[Heisenberg]

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/

[Whitey Grandad]

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)

[eurosaint]

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 !

[Saint Garrett]

Is our fitness in general to question? Not the first time we've seemed to be outrun on the pitch.

[beatlesaint]

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.

[Saint Garrett]

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.

[Saint Troy]

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

[sandwichsaint]

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....

[S-Clarke]

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'.

[SuperSAINT]

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.

[beatlesaint]

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 :-)

[mrfahaji]

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.

[Give it to Ron]

Arsene will have a lot more to moan about 2 down at B'miuth

 

 

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