Fitness

[Toussaint]

It was a massive problem last season but yesterday it seemed to play a major part in our winning the match. It was reminiscent of the Strachan era, when, if memory serves, we achieved a lot of results late in games. 
 

I don’t want to start another Stephens debate, I do appreciate him, others don’t, but he was like a new player yesterday in terms of speed and recovery. 
 

So well done to Still and team, getting the team up and ready for a long hard season where we will need be consistently at peak performance. 

[sockeye]

With all the modern obsession of systems and styles of play it’s easy to forget that players are athletes who spend 90+ minutes dashing across the pitch. I think our fitness will give us the edge this season and many many late goals.

[S-Clarke]

Just to give some fair balance, we did win quite a few games in the final mins in the last Championship season too.

Whilst fitness comes into play, you've also got to factor in the strength of the substitutes in comparison with the opponent. Inevitably quality will wear teams down.

But one thing I did notice yesterday was the ''who gives a shit about philosophy, just get as many strikers on the pitch at once and push the CB's up'' - and it worked. Under Martin we'd have spent the final 10mins passing between CB's and CM's.

[bangkoksaint]

4 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Just to give some fair balance, we did win quite a few games in the final mins in the last Championship season too.

Whilst fitness comes into play, you've also got to factor in the strength of the substitutes in comparison with the opponent. Inevitably quality will wear teams down.

But one thing I did notice yesterday was the ''who gives a shit about philosophy, just get as many strikers on the pitch at once and push the CB's up'' - and it worked. Under Martin we'd have spent the final 10mins passing between CB's and CM's.

Absolutely. May as well 2-0 - but at least we went down going for it 

[Whitey Grandad]

What struck me was that for most of the game the Wrexham forwards were quicker off a standing start and frequently got a few yards ahead of our defenders but I'm the last 15 minutes or so Wrexham sat back and tried to hold on to their lead by any means but were eventually overwhelmed by our superior fitness. It does help of course that we could bring on such effective substitutes. 

[Toussaint]

1 hour ago, S-Clarke said:

Just to give some fair balance, we did win quite a few games in the final mins in the last Championship season too.

Whilst fitness comes into play, you've also got to factor in the strength of the substitutes in comparison with the opponent. Inevitably quality will wear teams down.

But one thing I did notice yesterday was the ''who gives a shit about philosophy, just get as many strikers on the pitch at once and push the CB's up'' - and it worked. Under Martin we'd have spent the final 10mins passing between CB's and CM's.

In that situation I’d say it was as much to do with squad depth and the fact that Russ’s walking football wasn’t as  physically demanding. 

[Toussaint]

Just now, Whitey Grandad said:

What struck me was that for most of the game the Wrexham forwards were quicker off a standing start and frequently got a few yards ahead of our defenders but I'm the last 15 minutes or so Wrexham sat back and tried to hold on to their lead by any means but were eventually overwhelmed by our superior fitness. It does help of course that we could bring on such effective substitutes. 

I think Wrexham ran out of steam. I didn’t that they could keep that level of intensity up. Reminded me of Ralph burnout. 

[Badger]

Definite improvement, credit to Still, Trollope and co. Vast improvement on last season.

The improvement was demonstrated by Fraser lasting 90 minutes. Did he ever do that whilst Lego was in charge ?