MATCHWATCH : Bristol City (a)

[South Coast Royal]

As you can gather , talk of cricketers getting exhausted after bowling no more than 15 overs in a day and players needing to be rested when playing probably no more than about 45 games in a season (rested, injured etc.) doing jobs that many would die for has got to me a bit lately.

As a BTW I was thinking about what are the most tiring positions in football.

In my playing days as an "all round" midfielder it was the hardest physical role, forever getting forward and back, but possibly the most rewarding as you were always in the game .
Now with the trend of referring to midfielders as either attacking or defensive I do believe that the role has got easier, especially for the defensive midfielder.

Now, I feel that the lone striker is the most demanding position physically followed by the 2 centre-backs.
The lone striker has to make many short bursts during a game, often with no end result of a pass, and then has to get back and defend at corners and dangerous set pieces.
Even then some fans call them (Joao in our case) lazy when in fact they are quite likely to be the hardest working.

In the past centre-backs didn't come forward for corners but now they trudge forward and then have to sprint back and often are not the most athletic of specimens.
The keeper IMHO has the hardest job mentally having to focus at all times knowing that, unlike with outfield players who can get away with mistakes, he is more often punished for an error.

So, to those that call Joao lazy, just have a look at how much work he has to do , rather than criticise him just because he has lost possession and hasn't "bothered" to use up energy in chasing back.

[South Coast Royal]

Vic the season is around a month shorter as it is. Players often playing twice a week are much more prone to injury. That’s a fact. No surprise Laurent was rested. Sensible to do if he was carrying knocks. The Championship is well known for being incredibly intense and physical which is why clubs like ours are picking so many injuries.

So the maximum will be 49 games (mainly reserves have played in the 2 cup games) taking into account play-offs over 8 months.
Nobody will play the full 49 games because of injury and resting so I suspect that only somebody like Morro (ironically our oldest player) will play the maximum but many more will play no more that 40 or so.

Compare that say to a club like City that will play 38 league games, probably around 8 cup games in England and then maybe around 12 games in Europe.
Quite a few of the players will then play maybe 5 or 6 games at the Euros so a player, taking into account some resting, might well play over 50 games of high intensity and with considerable European travel over a period of a further month or so.

It's not a bad life is it that you have to work full on for not much more than 60 hours over an 8 month period?.

[RFCMod]

I tell you what bloody Esteves deserves a goal soon

[RoyalBlue]

I tell you what bloody Esteves deserves a goal soon

Agreed. I think some of his critics are also forgetting that he too is just a youngster at 18 years old. I reckon he's doing pretty well, particularly given his limited experience of English football and The Championship.

[Millsy]

LOl @ them sacking their manager after that defeat.

Is losing to little Reading really that bad?

They were woeful though.

We were the only team in it.

There's a real gulf now between top 6 and the rest (assuming Bournemouth win their game in hand) and really we should all be beating teams below who seem to be quite poor. Yeah wall beat us but they were quite poor too tbf.

Given the horrendous injury problems they have perhaps Mr Holden can regard himself as a tad unfortunate.

Agreed. LOL was more at the situation rather than him. I don't like to see anyone lose their job of course and he obviously had mitigating factors. Tough times for many at the moment.

[Nameless]

Vic the season is around a month shorter as it is. Players often playing twice a week are much more prone to injury. That’s a fact. No surprise Laurent was rested. Sensible to do if he was carrying knocks. The Championship is well known for being incredibly intense and physical which is why clubs like ours are picking so many injuries.

So the maximum will be 49 games (mainly reserves have played in the 2 cup games) taking into account play-offs over 8 months.
Nobody will play the full 49 games because of injury and resting so I suspect that only somebody like Morro (ironically our oldest player) will play the maximum but many more will play no more that 40 or so.

Compare that say to a club like City that will play 38 league games, probably around 8 cup games in England and then maybe around 12 games in Europe.
Quite a few of the players will then play maybe 5 or 6 games at the Euros so a player, taking into account some resting, might well play over 50 games of high intensity and with considerable European travel over a period of a further month or so.

It's not a bad life is it that you have to work full on for not much more than 60 hours over an 8 month period?.

Amazingly City have a big squad and rotate players !
They have played 36 first team games, no one has played in all of them. Rodri has started most games (30).
Seems Like Pep and Pauno May just know a bit more about gettingbthe most out of players but then you !
Liverpool have played 37 games and Robertson and Salah have started 31. Of course Liverpool stopped actually playing a while ago so the players aren’t really going to be tired.....

[Pepe the Horseman]

I tell you what bloody Esteves deserves a goal soon

Agreed. I think some of his critics are also forgetting that he too is just a youngster at 18 years old. I reckon he's doing pretty well, particularly given his limited experience of English football and The Championship.

Yeh, as I said before, I think people were expecting Dani Alves when he signed. If he was one of our academy players, people would be a lot happier with him.

[Millsy]

I do believe that the role has got easier, especially for the defensive midfielder.

Normally a right winger, got put in defensive midfield for one game and it was the worst game of football I played. Totally and utterly confused, didn't know where to be, whom to pick up, always running around like a headless chicken and constantly a couple of seconds behind what was happening in the game. We lost by 4 goals.

Not really relevant to what you're saying of course - it's probably easier than oldschool midfield or box to box etc but nowhere in the centre for me thanks, stick me on the right so I can do an old Aluko and go awol as needed.

[Vision]

As you can gather , talk of cricketers getting exhausted after bowling no more than 15 overs in a day and players needing to be rested when playing probably no more than about 45 games in a season (rested, injured etc.) doing jobs that many would die for has got to me a bit lately.

As a BTW I was thinking about what are the most tiring positions in football.

In my playing days as an "all round" midfielder it was the hardest physical role, forever getting forward and back, but possibly the most rewarding as you were always in the game .
Now with the trend of referring to midfielders as either attacking or defensive I do believe that the role has got easier, especially for the defensive midfielder.

Now, I feel that the lone striker is the most demanding position physically followed by the 2 centre-backs.
The lone striker has to make many short bursts during a game, often with no end result of a pass, and then has to get back and defend at corners and dangerous set pieces.
Even then some fans call them (Joao in our case) lazy when in fact they are quite likely to be the hardest working.

In the past centre-backs didn't come forward for corners but now they trudge forward and then have to sprint back and often are not the most athletic of specimens.
The keeper IMHO has the hardest job mentally having to focus at all times knowing that, unlike with outfield players who can get away with mistakes, he is more often punished for an error.

So, to those that call Joao lazy, just have a look at how much work he has to do , rather than criticise him just because he has lost possession and hasn't "bothered" to use up energy in chasing back.

Depends how a team sets up I guess . Full backs who provide the width cover the most ground in most teams I'd imagine. Van Dijk going up for the odd corner isn't going to trump Alexander-Arnold and Robertson bombing up and down the flank all game.

I actually wouldn't be at all surprised if the way we play that the likes of Ejaria and Meite aren't right up there in terms of ground covered per game for us. They press the opposition defence and also have to be back defending their own penalty area defensively and attacking wise have to also support the lone striker and be available for transition.

Lone striker who runs in the channels ala Forster or Long would certainly cover a lot of ground. Whilst it's a nonsense to describe. Joao as lazy (or any of our players really) he quite rightly plays within the width of the penalty box and although he comes short at times I'm not sure that would constitute more yards per game than the other positions I've mentioned or Rino and Laurent in their more driving forward games.

[RoyalBlue]

LOl @ them sacking their manager after that defeat.

Is losing to little Reading really that bad?

They were woeful though.

We were the only team in it.

There's a real gulf now between top 6 and the rest (assuming Bournemouth win their game in hand) and really we should all be beating teams below who seem to be quite poor. Yeah wall beat us but they were quite poor too tbf.

Given the horrendous injury problems they have perhaps Mr Holden can regard himself as a tad unfortunate.

Agreed. LOL was more at the situation rather than him. I don't like to see anyone lose their job of course and he obviously had mitigating factors. Tough times for many at the moment.

The Sky Commentator said that the Bristol City Chairman had told them that after the Watford game he made a point of looking at their horrendous injuries list to remind himself what a tough challenge Holden was facing. It would seem his memory doesn't retain things for very long!

I wonder just how much 'New Manager Bounce' any incoming manager will be able to achieve, given the limited resources currently at his disposal.

[South Coast Royal]

Vic the season is around a month shorter as it is. Players often playing twice a week are much more prone to injury. That’s a fact. No surprise Laurent was rested. Sensible to do if he was carrying knocks. The Championship is well known for being incredibly intense and physical which is why clubs like ours are picking so many injuries.

So the maximum will be 49 games (mainly reserves have played in the 2 cup games) taking into account play-offs over 8 months.
Nobody will play the full 49 games because of injury and resting so I suspect that only somebody like Morro (ironically our oldest player) will play the maximum but many more will play no more that 40 or so.

Compare that say to a club like City that will play 38 league games, probably around 8 cup games in England and then maybe around 12 games in Europe.
Quite a few of the players will then play maybe 5 or 6 games at the Euros so a player, taking into account some resting, might well play over 50 games of high intensity and with considerable European travel over a period of a further month or so.

It's not a bad life is it that you have to work full on for not much more than 60 hours over an 8 month period?.

Amazingly City have a big squad and rotate players !
They have played 36 first team games, no one has played in all of them. Rodri has started most games (30).
Seems Like Pep and Pauno May just know a bit more about gettingbthe most out of players but then you !
Liverpool have played 37 games and Robertson and Salah have started 31. Of course Liverpool stopped actually playing a while ago so the players aren’t really going to be tired.....

Not sure what your point is as you have reaffirmed what I said by quoting only how many games have been played so far, i.e Rodri if you pro rata to the end of the season will most likely play 50 games or more.
Sometimes you are a bit like Ian in making an argument when none exists.

As The Python saying goes "You have stated the bleedin' obvious".

Perhaps you should read a posting first before getting on that high horse.

[South Coast Royal]

As you can gather , talk of cricketers getting exhausted after bowling no more than 15 overs in a day and players needing to be rested when playing probably no more than about 45 games in a season (rested, injured etc.) doing jobs that many would die for has got to me a bit lately.

As a BTW I was thinking about what are the most tiring positions in football.

In my playing days as an "all round" midfielder it was the hardest physical role, forever getting forward and back, but possibly the most rewarding as you were always in the game .
Now with the trend of referring to midfielders as either attacking or defensive I do believe that the role has got easier, especially for the defensive midfielder.

Now, I feel that the lone striker is the most demanding position physically followed by the 2 centre-backs.
The lone striker has to make many short bursts during a game, often with no end result of a pass, and then has to get back and defend at corners and dangerous set pieces.
Even then some fans call them (Joao in our case) lazy when in fact they are quite likely to be the hardest working.

In the past centre-backs didn't come forward for corners but now they trudge forward and then have to sprint back and often are not the most athletic of specimens.
The keeper IMHO has the hardest job mentally having to focus at all times knowing that, unlike with outfield players who can get away with mistakes, he is more often punished for an error.

So, to those that call Joao lazy, just have a look at how much work he has to do , rather than criticise him just because he has lost possession and hasn't "bothered" to use up energy in chasing back.

Depends how a team sets up I guess . Full backs who provide the width cover the most ground in most teams I'd imagine. Van Dijk going up for the odd corner isn't going to trump Alexander-Arnold and Robertson bombing up and down the flank all game.

I actually wouldn't be at all surprised if the way we play that the likes of Ejaria and Meite aren't right up there in terms of ground covered per game for us. They press the opposition defence and also have to be back defending their own penalty area defensively and attacking wise have to also support the lone striker and be available for transition.

Lone striker who runs in the channels ala Forster or Long would certainly cover a lot of ground. Whilst it's a nonsense to describe. Joao as lazy (or any of our players really) he quite rightly plays within the width of the penalty box and although he comes short at times I'm not sure that would constitute more yards per game than the other positions I've mentioned or Rino and Laurent in their more driving forward games.

Of course it depends on the system as Liverpool being the example you chose use full-backs almost as right-sided midfielders.
VVD going up for the odd corner as you put it-he goes up for every corner and the way that Liverpool play that can be 10 times in a game plus attacking free-kicks which might be around 5-6 times per game so hardly the "odd corner".

As for Rino and Laurent doing "driving runs" I would suggest that there are far less of those than the short bursts by Joao-I was talking of energy used rather than distance and with that in mind I feel that the lone striker works harder than any other position.
Incidentally I would like more of those driving runs from these two as the defensive element of their game is a bit of a doddle .

[Nameless]

So the maximum will be 49 games (mainly reserves have played in the 2 cup games) taking into account play-offs over 8 months.
Nobody will play the full 49 games because of injury and resting so I suspect that only somebody like Morro (ironically our oldest player) will play the maximum but many more will play no more that 40 or so.

Compare that say to a club like City that will play 38 league games, probably around 8 cup games in England and then maybe around 12 games in Europe.
Quite a few of the players will then play maybe 5 or 6 games at the Euros so a player, taking into account some resting, might well play over 50 games of high intensity and with considerable European travel over a period of a further month or so.

It's not a bad life is it that you have to work full on for not much more than 60 hours over an 8 month period?.

Amazingly City have a big squad and rotate players !
They have played 36 first team games, no one has played in all of them. Rodri has started most games (30).
Seems Like Pep and Pauno May just know a bit more about gettingbthe most out of players but then you !
Liverpool have played 37 games and Robertson and Salah have started 31. Of course Liverpool stopped actually playing a while ago so the players aren’t really going to be tired.....

Not sure what your point is as you have reaffirmed what I said by quoting only how many games have been played so far, i.e Rodri if you pro rata to the end of the season will most likely play 50 games or more.
Sometimes you are a bit like Ian in making an argument when none exists.

Perhaps you should read a posting first before getting on that high horse.

I wasn’t looking for an argument ! The nature of a discussion board is people respond to stuff you say ! I think it’s a bit rich of you to accuse others of getting on their high horse, yiu seem very comfortable up there yourself .
You’ve been very selective in the bits you pull out. Both City and Liverpool rotate their players, it’s what managers do. You don’t seem to have an arguement for why every manager in the country is wrong to do this except you think players should be able to play every minute of every game because a Liverpool team in the seventies only used 12 players all season. There is plenty of logic as to why players might perform better overall if they sometimes get left out to protect against minor injuries getting serious, or if scientific metrics show they are performing below their optimum.
When you consider how fragile the manager’s tenure is it is almost impossible to conceive that they ‘rest’ players for anything other than sound medical or tactical reasons. There is simply no mileage in a manager leaving a player out and weakening your team unnecessarily.
Now perhaps you could get on board with the concept of ‘discussion’ and accept that other people can push back and disagree with you, you don’t need to become all defensive because others see holes in one of your pet theories....

[Snowflake Royal]

I will no doubt incur fury for saying this, but Morro's goal was not a wonder goal.

He does really well to push forward, see a gap, pass to Joao and continue his run. However, once he gets it back, it's a lucky ricochet and a deflected finish. I'd say a good goal for a CB overall, but Morrodonna he is not.

Pearce's stopovers at Doncaster and the Brynaldo cruyff turn at Anfield score higher.

He has the wherewithal to pick up the loose ball, try to beat his man, recover the block and then lob the keeper whilst stumbling. It's a great goal.

It's not pretty, but it's brilliant.

[Zip]

I think Esteves has adapted well after a sketchy start. I certainly wouldn’t be concerned if I saw him in the starting line up again any time soon.

[South Coast Royal]

Amazingly City have a big squad and rotate players !
They have played 36 first team games, no one has played in all of them. Rodri has started most games (30).
Seems Like Pep and Pauno May just know a bit more about gettingbthe most out of players but then you !
Liverpool have played 37 games and Robertson and Salah have started 31. Of course Liverpool stopped actually playing a while ago so the players aren’t really going to be tired.....

Not sure what your point is as you have reaffirmed what I said by quoting only how many games have been played so far, i.e Rodri if you pro rata to the end of the season will most likely play 50 games or more.
Sometimes you are a bit like Ian in making an argument when none exists.

Perhaps you should read a posting first before getting on that high horse.

I wasn’t looking for an argument ! The nature of a discussion board is people respond to stuff you say ! I think it’s a bit rich of you to accuse others of getting on their high horse, yiu seem very comfortable up there yourself .
You’ve been very selective in the bits you pull out. Both City and Liverpool rotate their players, it’s what managers do. You don’t seem to have an arguement for why every manager in the country is wrong to do this except you think players should be able to play every minute of every game because a Liverpool team in the seventies only used 12 players all season. There is plenty of logic as to why players might perform better overall if they sometimes get left out to protect against minor injuries getting serious, or if scientific metrics show they are performing below their optimum.
When you consider how fragile the manager’s tenure is it is almost impossible to conceive that they ‘rest’ players for anything other than sound medical or tactical reasons. There is simply no mileage in a manager leaving a player out and weakening your team unnecessarily.
Now perhaps you could get on board with the concept of ‘discussion’ and accept that other people can push back and disagree with you, you don’t need to become all defensive because others see holes in one of your pet theories....

Again, if you had bothered to read you will see that Reading players play less games than top players.
If they play less games presumably they feel less tired.
I even forgot the 6 or 7 international games that people like the players that you mentioned , i.e Robertson and Salah play so the gap is even wider than first indicated.

I stand by my point that Championship players, including Reading's, play considerably less games than most top players so there is much less a case for resting ours.
Rotation by Pep & Co is irrelevant to this point because they have bigger squads and better players but the rotation in practice is far less than some make it out to be as demonstrated by the examples that you have given..

[NewCorkSeth]

I tell you what bloody Esteves deserves a goal soon

Agreed. I think some of his critics are also forgetting that he too is just a youngster at 18 years old. I reckon he's doing pretty well, particularly given his limited experience of English football and The Championship.

I'm all for holding realistic expectations about players but if he was one of our own he wouldn't be nearly as heavily criticised. He looks to be a very good young player who could have an excellent career. Given the injuries to Yiadom and, um, that Brazilian fella who I cant quite remember the name of, Esteves has proved to be a valuable signing.

[Westwood52]

I spent years playing CB. ,with the occasional CDM.There were games I found it so easy at CB,that I became bored.I then put my hand up to play RB against the Gurkhas somewhere near Wycombe;after about ten minutes going up and down,I thought I was going to die.

[South Coast Royal]

I spent years playing CB. ,with the occasional CDM.There were games I found it so easy at CB,that I became bored.I then put my hand up to play RB against the Gurkhas somewhere near Wycombe;after about ten minutes going up and down,I thought I was going to die.

Did you used to go up for corners?

[Brain Traysers]

Personally I'd love to see some of the performance data over the last few games - we have had 4 games in 11 days, and 6 outfield players have played nearly every minute (Ejaria, Joao, Olise, Rinomhota, TMac and Morro have all played 355 or more). That's a huge athletic load, and fairly unique to this season; in 2018/19 (the last "normal" season) there were only 2 occasions when the preceding 12 days featured 4 league games (Xmas period), last season it was 8 occasions (Xmas plus 6 after restart, but this season its set to be 25 - 12x the 'normal' amount.

The literature supports 72h being insufficient to fully recover and in-game injury frequency being 10x training injury frequency (referenced here, original source unclear). Other research (1 and 2)suggests the load varies by position, with average sprint distance longest for centre forward (double that for CMs) and wide midfielders, and more turns for wide midfielders and full backs. All of this points towards the need to rest Joao, Olise and Ejaria, or risk another injury to a key player.

I agree with a lot of the points Hound raised about a first XI player at 80% being a better option than a youngster at 100%, and agree with the idea that the performance analysts and sports science team have access to the meaningful data and should be feeding it to Pauno. However, I doubt the analysts have the power to overrule the manager in team selection (especially as the vast majority of players want to play, even when unfit), so the lineups will always be a function of the Manager's own risk tolerance - essentially he could be ignoring a recommendation to rest various players. Of course, this isn't a fair trade-off, as Pauno resting or subbing off a key player costing a game directly reflects on him (e.g. the largely unfair criticism after Holmes was subbed off against Millwall), but he won't get much support (aside from me) for successfully rotating and having a stronger squad available for the run in (especially in the absence of a counterfactual). It seems to me that the rotation we have seen so far has largely been tactical (CBs as full backs vs Millwall) or forced (Pauno said Laurent was "rested" yesterday due to an accumulation of injuries - if he was fit enough to play but being deliberately rested then surely he would have been on the bench, so really I think he was injured)

All-in-all, I just think Pauno is at the different end of the spectrum to me, preferring to pick and leave on key players to chase individual results and risking longer term squad fitness/availability. It's telling that compared to the rest of the league we have used the fewest players this season (24), have the second lowest avg mins per sub (17) and the 4th highest unused subs (156). I would expect a team with an injury crisis to have used an above-average number of players. I think my preference for a fully-fit inferior player over a tired superior player comes much earlier than Pauno's, especially for the attacking players - in our last 6 games we haven't scored a second half goal, so its not like the kids+Aluko+Baldock could be doing worse at killing off games...