Pre-season (or lack of)

[SKD]

Why did we only play 1? game? who’s fault is that? Was it a ralph decision? 
 

If it was a Ralph decision, why is he complaining about lack of fitness and match sharpness? 

[hypochondriac]

It sounds ridiculous to be honest. We've always touted our big interest in sports science and all the effort we go into who on earth authorised this? 

[S-Clarke]

It looks like we copied what we did in 'lockdown', as that worked well in a very unique and unprecedented situation.

Basically, we got complacent, saw that what we did worked before and didn't bother to do anything else, even though in reality starting a brand new season is a totally different dynamic to coming back after 'lockdown'.

We have done this so often over the last 5 or so years, we think we've reinvented the wheel and get all complacent and totally take our eyes off the ball. I thought those times had past us.

[bpsaint]

Just seems that all the effort we went through during lockdown making sure the players had all the equipment they needed to stay super fit was not repeated during the close season. 

We saw photos of the players relaxing on their holidays and it doesn’t take long for fitness to go backwards so it’s a mystery we there weren’t more friendlies as per of a more intense preseason. Did they watch us smash Swansea and think that we were up to speed and didn’t need any more games?

[SuperSAINT]

2 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

It looks like we copied what we did in 'lockdown', as that worked well in a very unique and unprecedented situation.

Basically, we got complacent, saw that what we did worked before and didn't bother to do anything else, even though in reality starting a brand new season is a totally different dynamic to coming back after 'lockdown'.

We have done this so often over the last 5 or so years, we think we've reinvented the wheel and get all complacent and totally take our eyes off the ball. I thought those times had past us.

Yeah. Difference was players got super-fit in lockdown. We must have realised this during the early fitness test results.

[Saint_clark]

We didn't only play one game, there was at least two full senior games and one of them was actually two games as it was four halves worth of football. 

But I don't disagree with the point in general, we clearly fucked up our preparation.

[SuperSAINT]

Half the Swansea game was the main one.  Wycombe & Woking were U23 teams.

Fulham was during international break. 

Were there any others?

Edited 17 September, 2020 by SuperSAINT

[bpsaint]

1 hour ago, SuperSAINT said:

Half the Swansea game was the main one.  Wycombe & Woking were U23 teams.

Fulham was during international break. 

Were there any others?

There was a full “A team vs B team” match at St Mary’s which was never reported, but I’m not sure that really counts as a competitive friendly.

[LGTL]

10 hours ago, bpsaint said:

There was a full “A team vs B team” match at St Mary’s which was never reported, but I’m not sure that really counts as a competitive friendly.

I suspect both teams somehow managed to lose. 

[vectraman]

12 hours ago, SuperSAINT said:

Half the Swansea game was the main one.  Wycombe & Woking were U23 teams.

Fulham was during international break. 

Were there any others?

It may be my imagination playing tricks , but I thought we had also played Bristol City in a friendly?

 

[John Boy Saint]

1 hour ago, vectraman said:

It may be my imagination playing tricks , but I thought we had also played Bristol City in a friendly?

 

Thats was the pre 19/20 season resumption friendly game of 3 halves.  Like I mentioned on another thread, in commentary for the Palace game it was mentioned more than once that Palace had played and were unbeaten in all four of their pre season friendlies v Oxford, Charlton, Millwall and Brondby - Oxford have proved to be no slouches, Charlton and Millwall are going to be game as badgers against another London club and Brondby I don't know much about, but they ain't come to take in the sights of Croydon and that ended up as a draw so it must have been a game of some effort from both sides. They looked like they had been playing football in the game with us.

You can run round cones etc until the cows come home, but if anyone has watched a game at pitch level its a very different view, to being elevated, even a few rows, in the stand or watching on TV. You need to know where your team mate is through a crowd and not the predetermined positioned crowd of the training pitch, only a few games against unknown variables (another team) is going to get your eye back in.........but then we all know that.

Edited 18 September, 2020 by John Boy Saint

[the saint in winchester]

Like you all, I'm trying to understand what has happened.

It seems that Ralph had the players keep fit and sharp through lockdown on the basis the season is still ongoing, just paused. Maybe other clubs said to their players "look on this time as a good time to rest". Then when Project Restart commenced, we were fit and ready to go, when other teams weren't. That's why we did well.

However when the season finally finished, maybe our players told Ralph it was holiday time. Then returned out of condition. Ings, WP and Army went on international duty, and the others are still not ready for the season. So now we are paying for that lack of pre-season conditioning.

When's the next international break? Tell our international players they can forget representing their countries, and be ready for double-training sessions with the club. We need to catch up quick.

[S-Clarke]

2 hours ago, the saint in winchester said:

Like you all, I'm trying to understand what has happened.

It seems that Ralph had the players keep fit and sharp through lockdown on the basis the season is still ongoing, just paused. Maybe other clubs said to their players "look on this time as a good time to rest". Then when Project Restart commenced, we were fit and ready to go, when other teams weren't. That's why we did well.

However when the season finally finished, maybe our players told Ralph it was holiday time. Then returned out of condition. Ings, WP and Army went on international duty, and the others are still not ready for the season. So now we are paying for that lack of pre-season conditioning.

When's the next international break? Tell our international players they can forget representing their countries, and be ready for double-training sessions with the club. We need to catch up quick.

I think how you explain it is how it played out.

Ralph has said today that he wanted to give the players 3 weeks off in the summer, they needed a break. But that meant they had 3 weeks with zero training. Then most of our players had just 1 week training with the club before our first game (that's because of international duty etc).

It doesn't take long, maybe 5 days, for an elite athlete to lose his top level conditioning if he steps off of it.