Post lock-down form?

[Cerberus Blade]

I was wondering what you reckon the form of the team, and individual players within the team, will be like when the lock-down is finally lifted?

I'm sure the lads have been looking after themselves, but, they've not played a competitive game of football now for 6 weeks. No amount of playing footy with the kids in the back garden, or volleying toilet rolls into an empty net, can quite atone for the absence of a competitive football game.

If you are one of those that believe that only a "full pre-season" can equip a player to perform to the highest level, and without it, they can never recover/catch up for the rest of that season, where does that leave you now? Because all of these players will have been missing football for weeks and NONE of them will have a full pre-season, (peri-season), before they start playing again.

I suppose it depends how much notice they get that they are going to start playing again? and that depends on the relaxation of social distancing rules. Whilever the 2 metre social distancing rule is in place, football cannot re-start. Football training cannot re-start, more to the point. So, that's going to have to go first. The good news (I think) is that it will go - for some. And it will go (for some) by the end of this month, as long as the infection rate keeps going down. And the reason it will go is because business, in general, cannot operate very easily if folks have to stay 2 metres apart. This is particularly true of football of course.

But let's imagine football gets the green light to start up in June - there's going to be a rush to get the remaining games played - and the players are going to be nowhere near fit. Some will be fitter than others, but none will be anywhere near the level of fitness that they were when the season abruptly finished. You could say "it's going to be the same for all teams" - and it is. But that doesn't make it equal, because, arguably, some teams success depends more on a high energy, pressing game, which requires a very high level of fitness - whereas some other teams, may have more innate talent and superior technical players, who can still be devastatingly good, even if not 100% fit. I'll leave you to decide which category our football club falls into - but for me, I think we possibly stand to be disadvantaged more because of this break, than some other teams, because our game is built upon relentless pressing and high fitness levels.

The other side of that coin is that we have quite a unique way of playing. A way of playing that everyone in the world has now heard about. And despite everyone knowing about it, no one has really been able to stop us doing it to them, with a high degree of success. That attribute of ours is not going to disappear just because of this break. Neither is the team spirit, or the excellent leadership of our manager.

But...

It will be tough re-starting a season, three quarters of the way through it, and trying to rush it to a finish, in empty stadiums, at a lower level of fitness. I can see it being a bit like the first few games of a new season, when it just takes time to adapt and settle in.

Nonetheless, it will be just great to have it back!

 

[finlaytheblade]

I was wondering what you reckon the form of the team, and individual players within the team, will be like when the lock-down is finally lifted?

I'm sure the lads have been looking after themselves, but, they've not played a competitive game of football now for 6 weeks. No amount of playing footy with the kids in the back garden, or volleying toilet rolls into an empty net, can quite atone for the absence of a competitive football game.

If you are one of those that believe that only a "full pre-season" can equip a player to perform to the highest level, and without it, they can never recover/catch up for the rest of that season, where does that leave you now? Because all of these players will have been missing football for weeks and NONE of them will have a full pre-season, (peri-season), before they start playing again.

I suppose it depends how much notice they get that they are going to start playing again? and that depends on the relaxation of social distancing rules. Whilever the 2 metre social distancing rule is in place, football cannot re-start. Football training cannot re-start, more to the point. So, that's going to have to go first. The good news (I think) is that it will go - for some. And it will go (for some) by the end of this month, as long as the infection rate keeps going down. And the reason it will go is because business, in general, cannot operate very easily if folks have to stay 2 metres apart. This is particularly true of football of course.

But let's imagine football gets the green light to start up in June - there's going to be a rush to get the remaining games played - and the players are going to be nowhere near fit. Some will be fitter than others, but none will be anywhere near the level of fitness that they were when the season abruptly finished. You could say "it's going to be the same for all teams" - and it is. But that doesn't make it equal, because, arguably, some teams success depends more on a high energy, pressing game, which requires a very high level of fitness - whereas some other teams, may have more innate talent and superior technical players, who can still be devastatingly good, even if not 100% fit. I'll leave you to decide which category our football club falls into - but for me, I think we possibly stand to be disadvantaged more because of this break, than some other teams, because our game is built upon relentless pressing and high fitness levels.

The other side of that coin is that we have quite a unique way of playing. A way of playing that everyone in the world has now heard about. And despite everyone knowing about it, no one has really been able to stop us doing it to them, with a high degree of success. That attribute of ours is not going to disappear just because of this break. Neither is the team spirit, or the excellent leadership of our manager.

But...

It will be tough re-starting a season, three quarters of the way through it, and trying to rush it to a finish, in empty stadiums, at a lower level of fitness. I can see it being a bit like the first few games of a new season, when it just takes time to adapt and settle in.

Nonetheless, it will be just great to have it back!

You make a good point Cerberus! We hav'nt been fast out of the traps any season under Wilder even though we won the 1st match twice.
The players hopefully will really see the opportunity they have and make the most of it.Could be the onlytime in there careers they have the chance to win something (FA cup)

 

[finlaytheblade]

You make a good point Cerberus! We hav'nt been fast out of the traps any season under Wilder even though we won the 1st match twice.
The players hopefully will really see the opportunity they have and make the most of it.Could be the onlytime in there careers they have the chance to win something (FA cup)

Got that wrong Cerberus! Drew at Bournmouth 1st match although on the day it felt like a win.

 

[Alf Tuppers Shorts]

The other thing about restarting and getting the players fit is that a normal Pre-season would contain 5 or 6 friendlies . You could have players as fit as a lop but cannot replacate match time without these pre -season friendlies and there’s no way any team will be able to get this type of fitness.
To be honest it’s going to be nothing like we seen before , if it does go ahead by the last game of the season the players will just be finally tuned for a full season . All the interviews from the players suggest United would be up to speed better than most as they say they train the same way as they play no punches pulled and 100% . All we would be missing is game time.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

Almost all our players are accustomed to the schedule of playing big games twice a week. (Doing it Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday in the arena as Adkins would say)

Most other teams and players are not (except the European teams, Norwich and Villa). No wonder Brighton and West Ham are bricking it.

 

[S64 Blade]

Worth pointing out that the other 19 teams haven’t been playing either.

However, we do have a history of performing better when the games are thick and fast and have a poor record after the international breaks.

 

[ATL Recs]

The other thing about restarting and getting the players fit is that a normal Pre-season would contain 5 or 6 friendlies . You could have players as fit as a lop but cannot replacate match time without these pre -season friendlies and there’s no way any team will be able to get this type of fitness.
To be honest it’s going to be nothing like we seen before , if it does go ahead by the last game of the season the players will just be finally tuned for a full season . All the interviews from the players suggest United would be up to speed better than most as they say they train the same way as they play no punches pulled and 100% . All we would be missing is game time.

By the time the players can train the way they play it will be close to three months since they’ve trained the way they play -
So, assuming they can disregard social distancing at the end of May that will give them a week or so of normal high intensity training
I’d say that looks like a big disadvantage

 

[Rob86]

It’s really difficult to judge what might happen.

I tend to agree, as possibly the most organised team in the league, we may take a couple of games and training sessions to get back up to speed with our shape and approach, so gaps maybe left at the back or in the middle initially.

That said, we don’t rely on two or three flair players to unlock defences and such players may also have lost that agility or trickery initially until they are playing and training regularly. So the winners coming out of the lockdown could be the organised teams who are comfortable grafting without the ball.

So to summarise I haven’t got a bloody clue, but it’s good that we have got ourselves in a position that anything catastrophic is very unlikely to happen and who knows, if it benefits us, we could end up in dream land.