Even in the last minutes of the game they were running the channels and looked like they could keep going…… I hope yesterday was a sign of things to come
Difficult to tell , thought Earl looked to have put some timber on , didn’t see much signs of high press particularly
Said straight after the game yesterday last season we would have lost that conceding and then the man down. Think both mentally and fitness last season meant we conceded so many goals in the 2nd half or from winning positions.
You can just see the whole set up is more professional. The warm up is a proper routine. The conditioning guy has no messing about, everyone wired in. Under Clarke it was a **** show, subs wandering around playing head tennis and pissing about with the sprinklers.
Hard to tell we are fitter imo. Because surely you are at your fittest for first match after a pre-season, I think we won’t know whether we are until later in season, hopefully we are though
"surely you are at your fittest for first match" Not really....match fitness comes after a few games.
Because we looked fitter than the peak of last season. And even if that's not yet evident, what is, is that we played with much more energy.
They certainly kept going late into the game so fitness does look to be good. Is it better than the last 2 years? Probably. We’ll see as the season goes on and I really hope it is the case. However, the way a team is set up to play can be deceiving. A lot of last season we played a low block and only really press the ball until it enters your half so for large parts the players don’t run around a lot. Same for the slow possession based play under Collins. Hourihane seems to want a bit more pressing and tempo which will make us look like we’re working harder, and therefore fitter, even if that isn’t the case. We’ll have to judge it over a larger sample size.
I thought we looked fit and energetic. But we need to make sure we have a squad and manage that squad to maintain a high energy through the season. While I compliment the players that came on, i still think we are 3 players short. Suspensions and injuries will take its toll, in fact it already is.
My first thought was some of our players look a lot more bulky and have added muscle mass. Could be some visual dynamics with the shirt! They certainly kept going til the end. Often first game players are struggling by the end. A good sign and hopefully it contributes to stemming a few goals. In the 15 minutes I saw, we certainly didn't look great at the back gifting space and opportunity which thankfully weren't taken.
Maybe we should invest in shirts like those the kids have with extra muscles to make them look like the Hulk. The entire squad looks like proper units, but its all padding...
Early signs are good although it's all relative to the opposition so we'll have to see over the next few matches.
