The poor fitness levels - which were evident from the very first home game of the season when a QPR side who were outclassed and should have been 5-0 down at half-time, subsequently had us hanging on in the last half-hour even when they had 10 men on the way to a 2-2 draw in - are glaring.
The substitutions come at the 60 minute mark in pretty much every match, and absent a particular injury happening, they always appear to have been pre-planned before the match. The substitutions that Wilder/Knill make hardly ever constitute a tactical change in response to how the match is developing. They are always made on the basis of how many minutes player ‘x’ is deemed to be capable of playing.
As we know, this season United have invariably looked spent after 70 minutes of games. And, as others have noted, this must have been a big contributory factor in our approach appearing to be negative. It probably wasn’t all about being deliberately defensive but was actually in part, a natural inclination to fall deeper and deeper into defence because the tank was simply empty.
Every week, up and down the country, loads of late goals are scored. This season we managed to score just one solitary goal after 90+ minutes - Burrows 98th minute winner at Bristol City. That is a remarkable statistic across a 46 game season, especially for a side at the top of the table that amassed 92 points. The Dirties, by contrast, scored 12 goals on 90 minutes or later.
