Everton XI 5-0 Fleetwood Town XI (Behind-closed-doors friendly)

[Jxg]

Each club is handling it differently. The German players at Arsenal are on their own fitness regime and reportedly 2 weeks behind the rest of the squad. It's a long season so teams with smaller squads may not be willing to take risks with key players who were also at the latter stages of the World Cup?

Yes, but as I keep saying, the Germans played in the World Cup final. The Belgians dropped out in the quarter finals and furthermore, ours didn't play much at all.

 

[KevMirallas]

Schurrle will probably get a thousand times more rotation through the season than Kev and Rom. Just saying, like.

 

[Pabbers]

The fact we are still playing friendlies suggests to me we got pre-season wrong. I understand players are still returning to full fitness but the extra EL games will help with that. It looks as if the club have realised there actually wasn't enough football last month.

Nah, that was the hand they were dealt.

Blame the World Cup. If you look at all players who played at the WC, they all looked a yard or 2 off, at the weekend.

Its clever by us, to play these games, and I would be willing to bet that Martinez would pefer all our pre-season games to be behind-closed-doors.

 

[Dithering Dougie]

do people genuinelly believe that Roberto didnt know when the season started? Pre-season is planned meticulously we had players coming back from world cup/injury etc.. How can people spend their whole lives picking holes in everything. I pity you. Proper rant

How can you have a meticulously planned pre season and not have fixtures announced, you can't possible condition an athletes body and not know when he's going to be playing football.

It's been a shambles and there making the best of it, but don't make out it's been deliberate there's no evidence that any of this was meticulously planned in fact quite the opposite. We may fortuitously benefit from it in the long run but just as easily we may suffer because we're so far behind other teams when we hit our stride we've left to much to do. But scrambling round to get friendlies arranged at the last minute isn't meticulous planing, it's lax at best.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Why would the club announce a friendly that fans can't attend? I'm not sure I get the reasoning that it hasn't been planned.

 

[Pabbers]

Sometimes its not about rest physically, its about time away from the game with family. Like we all get from work.

Some players stay fit, some players dont.

Toure looked slow for City, so did Silva and he hardly kicked a ball at the World Cup.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Sometimes its not about rest physically, its about time away from the game with family. Like we all get from work.

Some players stay fit, some players dont.

Toure looked slow for City, so did Silva and he hardly kicked a ball at the World Cup.

Indeed. We have to remember too that the World Cup wasn't just about tournament games. There was maintaining training for an extra few months, there were the pre-tournament friendlies, there was the mental pressure involved.

Martinez is trained as a physio isn't he? Reckon that makes him qualified enough to know what he's doing.

 

[Pabbers]

Indeed. We have to remember too that the World Cup wasn't just about tournament games. There was maintaining training for an extra few months, there were the pre-tournament friendlies, there was the mental pressure involved.

Martinez is trained as a physio isn't he? Reckon that makes him qualified enough to know what he's doing.

Spot on mate.

I read that all players need 4 weeks off in the summer, that away from all football.

Also, these players have kids and families.

 

[marty mcfly]

Oh come on. I wish people would stop defending pre-season.

We looked off the pace against every team we played. In the 2nd half against Leicester we faded badly and we're still playing friendlies to make it up.

Chelsea started players that played in the WC final and semi final and looked right on it.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Spot on mate.

I read that all players need 4 weeks off in the summer, that away from all football.

Also, these players have kids and families.

Aye, it's common in a lot of sports to have about a month off between seasons. In cycling your performance is generally a function of three factors:

1. Fitness
2. Fatigue
3. Form

Fitness obviously comes the more you train, but you get a corresponding rise in fatigue. Form therefore comes when you drop off enough to maintain fitness as high as possible whilst reducing fatigue.

Over a long season it's tough to manage this, but suffice to say that after a world cup that is latched onto a season your fatigue will be as high as it's likely to get. This explains things well from a pre/early season perspective (note: it's cycling specific so the season starts in January)

As described earlier, the Prep period is a time when the athlete is just getting back into training following a break at the end of the previous season. In this case, it was December through early January. He had a family vacation planned for the last three weeks of this period and would not have a bike available. Here you can see the steady drop in both fatigue and fitness since he wasn’t riding. Accompanying that drop is a rise in form. He was really rested—at least as far as the bike goes—but, of course, his bike fitness was becoming increasingly poor. In the Base period he returned to steady and consistent training with increasing time spent on the indoor trainer working on aerobic endurance, muscular force and pedaling speed skills. The steady rise in fatigue and fitness with a drop in form all indicate that training was going as expected.

During the “1st Build” period I began to increase the intensity of his training by including muscular endurance rides made up primarily of intervals and tempo while maintaining his three fitness abilities—endurance, force and speed skills—established in the Base period. Both fatigue and fitness rose at a greater rate and form dropped to a low point of the early season due to this increase in the training load. I made slight adjustments to stress and rest along the way as the chart revealed how he was responding to training.

So I think a lot of our WC players are in this build phase.

 

[Darth Toffeeman]

Indeed. We have to remember too that the World Cup wasn't just about tournament games. There was maintaining training for an extra few months, there were the pre-tournament friendlies, there was the mental pressure involved.

Martinez is trained as a physio isn't he? Reckon that makes him qualified enough to know what he's doing.

People forget about the mental side of the game. Players need a complete break, not just physically, and if this eats slightly into a season then so be it. A players healthy wellbeing for the entire season is far more important, and the strains on the mind are often overlooked sadly.Clubs are trying to do more to help players in this aspect and so they are no longer rushed back from Summer international duty and rightly so.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

People forget about the mental side of the game. Players need a complete break, not just physically, and if this eats slightly into a season then so be it. A players healthy wellbeing for the entire season is far more important, and the strains on the mind are often overlooked sadly.Clubs are trying to do more to help players in this aspect and so they are no longer rushed back from Summer international duty and rightly so.

I would imagine as well that it's very difficult to actually build fitness during the season, especially if you have two games a week. You can't train hard (physically) because then you'll be tired for your game, which no one wants. If that is the case then it makes sense to use pre-season to work hard on fitness and then look simply to maintain that during the season.

As highlighted above, if you have a reasonable rest after a WC then you need some time to re-build again. I don't think you can judge our pre-season until May.

 

[bicycleheader]

Why was it needed then?

What's all this talk about ligament injuries? We're talking about Lukaku and Mirallas, not Hazard and Ross.

I´ve just asked you that question. What is the negative reason, you seem to be suggesting, for Rom and Kev not playing in preseason?

I suggested that the manager thought it was necessary. He would know more about their levels and where he wants them to be at than us.

I mentioned Hazard and Ross as an extreme example of just because Chelsea do something doesn´t mean we should do it, and doesn´t automatically mean what we are doing is wrong.

 

[bicycleheader]

Oh come on. I wish people would stop defending pre-season.

We looked off the pace against every team we played. In the 2nd half against Leicester we faded badly and we're still playing friendlies to make it up.

Chelsea started players that played in the WC final and semi final and looked right on it.

It´s not about defending pre-season. Its responding to posters who seem to assume a lot, and then post it as fact. What you have have just said is subjective and nowhere near as black and white as you put it.

 

[Dithering Dougie]

How many of our squad were at the World Cup? 6-7? It's understandable that their not ready but what about the likes of McCarthy, Barry or Distin looking tired in games.