Overtrained,overworked?

[Jakemoore]

BR always compliments our sports science department. I appreciate that he would never openly criticise them but he actively goes out of his way to praise them publicly so he must believe that they’re great at what they’re paid to do. Having said that, if Brendan does overwork the players then it’ll be his fault more than the sports science team meaning he would blindly believe that he is doing what is best for the team. 

[Collymore]

I wonder if the fixtures play a part. A fairly easy start on paper so maybe they're just easing us in. Bit like formula one bosses detuning the engine when they see fit. 

[Lesta2014]

Always think back to day one of pre season and KDH battering that test, everyone else looked knackered! Maybe they didn’t come back in the required shape. Wonder what the official stats show for fitness.

[Jattdogg]

We need these for our players. The new facilities just arent good enough

 

 

Edited 28 August 2021 by Jattdogg

[coolhandfox]

No surprise really , a season stopped and started due to a pandemic and then a short pre-season folllowed by another busy season and a short per season due to the Euros.

 

We have played 53 games in 20/21 and 48 in 19/20, 101 games, we have been playing the number of game that the traditonal big 6 side play without having the squad to go with it.

 

Reaching the League Cup Semi, FA Cup QTR 19/20, and FA Cup winners and Last 32 of the Europa League 20/21 has just piled on the games 

 

Compare to for example;

 

Newcastle 88

West Ham 86

Burnely.     85

Wolves      101 

Everton      89

Southampton 88

Villa.  89

 

Only Wolves of the teams I've check outside of the big six have played as many games 

Edited 29 August 2021 by coolhandfox

[sacreblueits442]

2 hours ago, Lesta2014 said:

Always think back to day one of pre season and KDH battering that test, everyone else looked knackered! Maybe they didn’t come back in the required shape. Wonder what the official stats show for fitness.

...can't recall a great deal of information on the stats tests!!!

  Under Pearson everyone came back in great shape and doing ball work within a day. Everyone had stuck to their plan and we had a head start on other clubs.

  We were a very fit side and could hold a good tempo.

We now are only good for 45 minutes, we are unable to string two good halves together .

[yorkie1999]

8 hours ago, blueharmie said:

Somethings clearly wrong with fitness, did you see them all blowing out their arses second half. 

Same happened at wolves. There is no way we are up to match pace and that is worrying. 

Well of the pace all three games and how we have won two of them is very lucky indeed. 

 

We need that quick slick passing back. 

 

And for ffs play nacho up top with vardy this kills me seeing him benched. 

I think Rodgers is trying to get the most out of Vardy whilst he’s still fit early in the season and nacho will play a more important role as the season progresses.

[cruzFOX]

Impact injuries is one thing but losing players to hamstring strains so early on is odd. Just the sheer amount of injuries to our main players is bizarre! The whole world knows if everyone is fit and firing on all cylinders we are one hell of an unstoppable team. Will it ever happen again? I really hope so and even more importantly keep the performances consistent till the end of the season.

 

Saying all that we had a team good enough to beat Norwich easily today. For whatever strange reason we weren’t sharp enough. Cags is still having brain farts but I respect his show of graft towards the end. There’s something going on in his head that he needs to sort out. He’s not a bad player so we can only support him thru this not lynch the guy.

Barnes is looking like his pre in form self you know where he dies everything right except for having a good end product. He’s fit & healthy and sharp but lacking mental confidence so he needs to get that back. Again let’s give the kid a chance and support him he will find his form again soon. Vardy is gonna be hit and miss not for a lack of trying but things that used to come so easy to him are no longer and maybe he just tried too hard again it’s a mental thing.

i guess what I’m getting at is maybe we need to get the sports psychologist back? It can only help surely.

[Lambert09]

There’s always going to be an element down to training. But I think to be completely fair, look at how many games we played last season. Then look at how much rotation we actually made. 

Now when you compare this to any big side in Europe it starts to make more sense why we would rack up injuries. The bigger clubs aren’t afraid to rotate for a league match, which we never really got to as a club (other than the failed crystal palace experiment) 
 

I think we actually have a squad capable of rotation now, but the issue is whether Brendan will utilize it.  Early signs aren’t great as we’ve stuck to the same core personnel and formations. 

 

I’m still hoping that when the fixtures get hectic and we’ve just beat a lower end team with 4231 with a line up like today’s that the next game Brendan will be willing to shake it up and swap to a 433 on a Tuesday with something like. 

kdh, soumare, Praet 

If the rotation is good enough, we have to use it. I wouldn’t be too upset to see youri given the odd rest because it will help improve his levels overall. 

Edited 29 August 2021 by Lambert09

[NaijaFox]

3 hours ago, cruzFOX said:

Impact injuries is one thing but losing players to hamstring strains so early on is odd. Just the sheer amount of injuries to our main players is bizarre! The whole world knows if everyone is fit and firing on all cylinders we are one hell of an unstoppable team. Will it ever happen again? I really hope so and even more importantly keep the performances consistent till the end of the season.

Er...it's been ONE injury in 4 games (3 PL and the Community Shield).

Other clubs like Villa and Brighton each have 2 players out from hamstring injuries before Saturday's games.

[Babylon]

Of course injuries are partly down to luck, but our record since Rodgers took over is shocking.

Add in the fact he brought in his own fitness people, got rid of our long time physio (you don’t do that if there isn’t agreement on things, he was part of the furniture). I’ve seen an endless stream of doctors etc joining our back room team seemingly in the last year.
 

It does point to something we are doing in terms of training, recovery, injury management etc. It’s not all of it, you can’t legislate for some of the injuries we’ve had, but it would be foolish to not question our record since he arrived.

[Mike Oxlong]

21 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Of course injuries are partly down to luck, but our record since Rodgers took over is shocking.

Add in the fact he brought in his own fitness people, got rid of our long time physio (you don’t do that if there isn’t agreement on things, he was part of the furniture). I’ve seen an endless stream of doctors etc joining our back room team seemingly in the last year.
 

It does point to something we are doing in terms of training, recovery, injury management etc. It’s not all of it, you can’t legislate for some of the injuries we’ve had, but it would be foolish to not question our record since he arrived.

I wonder if the first lockdown, followed by more frequent games and then a shorter summer break may have had something to do with it but even so we have had more injuries than most 

[Babylon]

4 minutes ago, Mike Oxlong said:

I wonder if the first lockdown, followed by more frequent games and then a shorter summer break may have had something to do with it but even so we have had more injuries than most 

I’m sure it hasn’t helped, but these injuries started to appear before we even went into a lockdown.

[FoxyLeon]

14 hours ago, Matt said:

I've just made this point in the post match thread and was going to find a suitable thread or start a thread to discuss it more.

 

On the face of our pre season I was happy, it was successful all but for Fofana's injury.

 

However I did raise the point we started abit late in comparison to other clubs and for me it's coming to bite us on the arse now.

 

Can't help but question our pre season?

 

I think we seemed to start atleast week or even 2 weeks behind many other teams.

 

Now I hear Rodgers talking about fitness and saying "We'll get fitter".

 

To add injuries on top of that are we working too hard in training trying to make up, instead of gradual build up as well as our players looking very flat and tired?

 

It's hard as many players didn't join up till later being away with their international teams but so did many other clubs and even so with the players we had available at the time we must have been one of the latest clubs to start our pre season.

 

Last season I questioned our injuries, I just don't believe we went from being so lucky with little to no injuries to so unlucky with many injuries piling up, when I questioned it last season people said its the extra games, i'm sorry but it's more than that you've gotta be questioning what we do in training (On many aspects).

 

 

Alternatively, we've picked up 6 points from 9.

 

And despite our terrible performances, hopefully, we don't self implode at the end of the season, and now with an international break too, it could be a stroke of genius if we come back firing, and with the extra depth, Daka/Soumare/KDH/Bertrand/Vestegaard etc, we may be able to put a bit of a challenge up in Europe this year.

[Guest Lako42]

Be nice of some journos started asking him some more probing questions on this rather than just the boring soundbites we usually get. 

 

Hamstring injuries at this stage is ridiculous. 

 

He also has a history of working the players hard in training 

 

Imo something isn't right. 

[Claridge]

Hopefully it’s a plan to make sure that we don’t burn out later in the season

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

Arsenal fans used to say similar things during the dying embers of the Wenger regime. There was a lot of talk and comment at how training was being mismanaged etc. But it seems to me that there is a good case to point a lot of blame at the fixture pile up over the last 12 - 18 months or whatever. We had a similar amount of fixtures as a top 4 side competing on all fronts without the squad depth.

[Shane]

I think the lack of rotation is also an issue.

 

Tielemans has played a crazy amount of games this past year and barely gotten a rest. He should be getting some games off now we have some decent back up in KDH / Soumare. Not resting him against Norwich signals to me we will just overwork Youri until he gets injured.

 

Maddison is another one. Something is clearly not right and he needs to be benched. Again, like Youri we have decent back up alternatives as we could play Iheanacho, KDH, Soumare or Praet. 

Vardy seems to get very tired by the 60th minute mark, similar to Okazaki. Daka should be coming off the bench every game & also starting some games to help share the load. 

 

Barnes needs to work his way back to fitness. The international break has come at a good time for him, because he doesn’t look match fit. Hopefully we will sign a winger so we aren’t so reliant on Harvey.

[An Sionnach]

10 minutes ago, Shane said:

I think the lack of rotation is also an issue.

 

Tielemans has played a crazy amount of games this past year and barely gotten a rest. He should be getting some games off now we have some decent back up in KDH / Soumare. Not resting him against Norwich signals to me we will just overwork Youri until he gets injured.

 

Maddison is another one. Something is clearly not right and he needs to be benched. Again, like Youri we have decent back up alternatives as we could play Iheanacho, KDH, Soumare or Praet. 

Vardy seems to get very tired by the 60th minute mark, similar to Okazaki. Daka should be coming off the bench every game & also starting some games to help share the load. 

 

Barnes needs to work his way back to fitness. The international break has come at a good time for him, because he doesn’t look match fit. Hopefully we will sign a winger so we aren’t so reliant on Harvey.

Everything you say is correct. Rodgers never really explains his thinking however,  its up to the hacks to ask him the right questions.

[demon_dog]

I blame the new plush training ground. 

Far to comfy for them. 

 

[UniFox21]

Seems our shorter, sharper pre season for an extended break hasn't gone to plan. 

[sm1]

Our pre season prep has definitely not worked. We look knackered in every game midway through the 2nd half. 

[Clever Fox]

We need to get back to running up and down the Sand Dune's and Nigels army marches. 

 

Seriously, Could it be the new surfaces in the training ground. aren't some of the artificial surfaces know to promote injuries. ? 

 

On the other hand I know for a fact that when the Team are not playing well how many players develop injuries. But when the team is playing well and Winning nobody get's injured.

You only have to look back at our league winning season, What was it 15/16 players used.

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

Our injury record under Pearson was ridiculous, I never understood how everyone was always fit, maybe without him and his team Matty James would have had both his legs amputated. 

 

Every year pundits would bang on about how unfortunate arsenal were with injuries. But there comes a point where you can't consistently have a plethora of players injured at any given time without looking inward. We're fast approaching if not already beyond that point, something has to be off. 

[murphy]

3 hours ago, UniFox21 said:

Seems our shorter, sharper pre season for an extended break hasn't gone to plan. 

Not really.  Our injury crisis is basically a hangover from last season, when several clubs had much higher injuries than normal due to lockdown and lack of pre season.  That is the reason, I would say, rather than training methods or pre season this year.

 

Of out current walking wounded, Justin and Evans' injuries occurred last year.  Maddison and Barnes injured last year and not yet up to speed or ongoing issues.

 

Of this season's injuries, Castagne was injured at The Euros, Bertrand contracted covid and you can hardly blame Nino's assault on Fofana on Rodgers.  That only leaves Ricardo and whatever has happened to Vestergaard.