December fixtures

[Namdrater]

I dont know if anyone has seen it yet, but my god.
We play 9 games in 31 days, 2-3 games a week. You think we're going to be able to grind out results in all competitions with that amount of schedule? I really hope we can, Carling cup, UEFA cup, league. We dont have the biggest squad or anything, we're lucky this isnt during the African Nations as well.

Portsmouth Sat 1st 15:00 A
Zenit St. Petersburg Wed 5th TBC H
Fulham Sat 8th 15:00 H
West Ham Sat 15th 15:00 A
West Ham Tue 18th 19:45 A
AZ Alkmaar Thu 20th TBC A
Man Utd Sun 23rd 12:00 A
Bolton Wed 26th 15:00 H
Arsenal Sat 29th 17:15 H

And two things I noticed looking at that...
We play Man Utd twice before we play Arsenal once? And the West Ham league cup match is just a few days after we play them in the league, both away.

I hope we can get through it, its going to be a very important month, probably giving our season an indication of where we are going.

 

[SuitsBlue]

those west ham games will be ace, and alkmaar is only holland, its closer to london that merseyside, so its a silver lining.

 

[CanadaToffee]

The Carling Cup game will be rescheduled due to the UEFA Cup game.

 

[SuitsBlue]

gutted.

 

[daz4matty]

I love it being in all these competitions i worry to about the size of our squad but it shows how far we have come under moysie and it puts us in the spotlight a lot more which makes us more appealing to future transfer targets

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I said this recently, we could concievably field a reserve team of:

Wessels

Hibbo
Stubbs
Jags
Valente

Osman
Graveson
Da Silva
VDM

Vaughan
Anichebe

And that's excluding McFadden, Boyle, Vidarrson, Lukas, Turner, Ruddy etc., not to mention any signings in January. I reckon that team on its own would probably finish at the top of the bottom half of the table, it certainly would be good enough to avoid relegation. We have I think 24 players with top flight experience in our squad, plus a few of the young lads with football league experience. We're not as threadbare as we have been in the past.

 

[SuitsBlue]

very true, but a couple of injuries where we are light and suddenly we are all concerned.

 

[Sim]

Their only playing football for christs sake, add that to the fact that their proffesional athletes! The tiredness issue is all psychological, its all down to wether the players see this as "unfair" they have so many games or actually be bold and look forward to the added games.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

very true, but a couple of injuries where we are light and suddenly we are all concerned.

Sure, we've seen that we suffer creatively if a few of our key midfielders are out but then you can say that about any team. We have probably as much depth as most teams, especially when you consider the number of versatile players such as Neville and Jagielka.

Their only playing football for christs sake, add that to the fact that their proffesional athletes! The tiredness issue is all psychological, its all down to wether the players see this as "unfair" they have so many games or actually be bold and look forward to the added games.

I used to agree with this but now I'm not so sure. Firstly the average player probably covers around 10,000 metres in a match. That's quite an effort and shouldn't be underestimated. Secondly, I don't think people are saying that the players can't play three games a week. What they're saying is that if you want players to be at their best in each match then three games per week isn't going to enable that.

I'll use swimming as I used to swim competitively. We would swim around 15,000 to 20,000 metres per week in training, far in excess of the distance covered in a race. But if you asked us to swim three races in quick succession we would probably only perform at our best in the first one. Obviously swimming is more of a sprint event as opposed to the distance running involved in football but you get the idea.

 

[Robert Jarvis]

We will just have to get stuck in, after all that is why they are paid tens of thousand pounds per week.

 

[FCConnecticut]

The upside is that they squad gets a lot more time to get used to working with each other under match conditions and not a scrimage. In some ways, this is how the good teams get better and develop players.

 

[Gazdalf]

If you make dogs or horses that are bred for competition compete more than twice a week and make them train in 3 out of the 5 other day then the RSPCA get called as that is cruelty. Just to put things into perspective. Then add the media harrassment and the pressures included and you can understand that psychological exhaustion for these athletes takes it's toll just as much as the physical side of life. What these players need to do is focus on being sportsmen and not celebrities. That is where the failings lie. But that is down to the corporate scumbags that think pounds over passion.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I blame Kerry Katona.

 

[Gazdalf]

I blame Kerry Katona.

The whore with a fanny like a ripped out fireplace, a well greased welly top, etc etc etc

 

[Bruce Wayne]

One and the same. May she burn in hell for clogging up our tv screens, wearing out our footballers and winding up poor Ghost.