Are We Playing Too Much Football ??

[Twizzle]

Its not just Spurs as its a given we wont make it through all the cups, but if you look at the 2 Manchester Clubs, Chavs and Scousers efforts today, wtf is going on ?

The lower league clubs looks much fresher.

Is the Christmas period too congested ?

 

[HotspurFC1950]

We changed our team by 9 players vs Leceister. Its not tiredness. Those players would want to play to press their first choice claims.

 

[rabbikeane]

The big teams that went out all made many changes,
the players that come in as replacements are all good and most likely of superior quality to the opponents.
But football is about team work, the opponents have 11 players that play together every week,
while the top teams have players that just play from time to time and often with different team mates.
Pretty sure sitting on the bench most of the time can put you off mentally as well.

 

[yiddopaul]

This isn't directed at you Twizzle, but when did it become difficult for players to play two 90 minute games a week? They are supposed to be super fit multi millionaire professionals, have proper diets, play on snooker table baize type pitches. Way back when, players had it much tougher AND they won things! I don't know when players became so delicate, (maybe it's for insurance reasons?)
I remember beginning of this season, after only a few games there was talk of 'resting' players! I mean, really?!

 

[scat1620]

Flippant answer to a serious question, but I'd say that for large portions of this season we haven't been playing enough football...

 

[BK007]

Let's not give these professionals any excuses.

First of all, great players cannot play enough football.

Second, these primadonnas all over the league get paid insulting amounts of money and how do they show they deserve it? Not giving their all and going out to opposition they should be swatting aside.

I'd be complaining much more, but this is how we've been all season, and also Chelsea, Man City, Soton, Liverpool and United all failed to beat lower opposition too. I would even say that we have no excuse. Besides Soton, who have unfortunate injuries, the rest pay well above us and they have got too many overpaid scum, but they are the top teams. We, are not a top team, and thus our players should want to give it their all to make at least our first team. So, poor all around.

 

[HotspurFC1950]

This isn't directed at you Twizzle, but when did it become difficult for players to play two 90 minute games a week? They are supposed to be super fit multi millionaire professionals, have proper diets, play on snooker table baize type pitches. Way back when, players had it much tougher AND they won things! I don't know when players became so delicate, (maybe it's for insurance reasons?)
I remember beginning of this season, after only a few games there was talk of 'resting' players! I mean, really?!

Hear bloody hear !

Too much nonsense being fed to players about they needing a rest.

 

[Twizzle]

Let's not give these professionals any excuses.

First of all, great players cannot play enough football.

Second, these primadonnas all over the league get paid insulting amounts of money and how do they show they deserve it? Not giving their all and going out to opposition they should be swatting aside.

I'd be complaining much more, but this is how we've been all season, and also Chelsea, Man City, Soton, Liverpool and United all failed to beat lower opposition too. I would even say that we have no excuse. Besides Soton, who have unfortunate injuries, the rest pay well above us and they have got too many overpaid scum, but they are the top teams. We, are not a top team, and thus our players should want to give it their all to make at least our first team. So, poor all around.

That's the point I was making, I wasn't just referring to our lame arse team

 

[cliff jones]

compared to the other leading leagues yeah we do play one extra cup, which can impact on the performance of those whove qualified for Europe. Most simply field weakened sides in both domestic cups, which obviously increases the chance of earlier elimination (as a number of leading clubs found out yesterday). Each year though two or three leading clubs get lucky draws, avoiding other big guns, meaning they can get away with fielding shite teams. Witness us in the League Cup.

Its clearly the Europa League which needs immediate reform though, with one less round post-group stage (adding another stage of qualifying is the obvious solution) and by keeping the CL dropouts away. We've played too many games and whenever Poch has decided to resort to a spine of Kaboul, Capoue and Adebayor we now exactly what's coming...

 

[DJS]

Tiredness my arse, the poor babies want to try doing a shitty 9-5 super stressful office job 5 days a week.

 

[DaSpurs]

No, we're not playing too much, and no, the holiday stretch is just fine. Frankly, I love the squad challenge of the English game. We just have a large squad full of players who are clearly just waiting for an exit ticket, and furthermore that large squad is tremendously unbalanced.

 

[beats1]

We are on course to break the record for most games played in a season, Im very disappointed we got knocked out of the FA cup but it may actually help us prioritise Europa League, that said the carling cup finishes soon so it does make you disappointed that we didn't go through especially considering we had a real chance of winning it this year imo

The current record for most games in a season is 63 (premier league era)

 

[Mullers]

We're not playing too much, that's an excuse for losing yesterday. The best and most successful teams play a lot of games, if you want to win a lot of trophies that's what you have to do.

 

[alamo]

Flippant answer to a serious question, but I'd say that for large portions of this season we haven't been playing enough football...

 

[allatsea]

The players should be able to cope with two games a week but what we have no time for is coaching to sort out problems. If we play on say a Sunday the following day is a recuperation day. If we are playing abroad or up north the next day is a travelling day. Match on say a Thursday means Pochettino only has a Wednesday and the following Saturday possibly, assuming we are playing again on a Sunday, for coaching.

 

[dudu]

Hear bloody hear !

Too much nonsense being fed to players about they needing a rest.

I'm not defending the result as I feel the squad we have should be capable of putting in a better perfformance than we saw yesterday but it's two games a week for a month, not just two games a week.

That's not entirely a regular amount of games and players are unlikely to be able to play 8 games to an equally high standard in a month without rest.

 

[CosmicHotspur]

We used to play just as many games and sometimes even more, with players who were probably not at the same fitness level as today's footballers without subs and get good results.

So I don't think we are playing too many games. We should be able to cope with our schedule.

 

[Col_M]

Interesting that City played a friendly over in the Middle East as part of a 'break'. I guess the if you sleep with the devil..........

 

[Col_M]

We used to play just as many games and sometimes even more, with players who were probably not at the same fitness level as today's footballers without subs and get good results.

So I don't think we are playing too many games. We should be able to cope with our schedule.

Yes and no. European competitions were knock out (home and away? rather than mini leagues which IS more games. By contrast FA Cup games could go to multiple replays until a result was reached. Remind me, did replays of replays get played at the original home side's ground again?

 

[dontcallme]

Not sure why people bring money into it so muc. Yes it's galling that players earn so much but being a millionaire doesn't change your biology.

Bodies do need to recover, that's just the way our bodies work.

Players don't moan that often about playing so many games. Being as wealthy and high profile as they are people expect ridiculous performances from them, every single game.

Michael Owen was one of the most talented players I've seen in relatively recent times and his body was shot to pieces by his late 20s. Sterling had the cheek to say he was feeling tired and got a ridiculous amount of abuse for it.

Clubs with squads as big as ourselves should be able to rotate better but if we lose a game after resting a star player we get criticised.

We probably do play a few too many games. Clubs as big as ourselves can rotate to deal with it though.