Play-off/relegation watch.

[Greatwesternline]

You can, but it comes at a risk of over-training (and hence, more injuries) and you've only got a limited amount of time each week. Read any biographies by recent pros and they'll stress just how much of their time during the week is actually rest and recovery.

IIRC he's brought in a fitness coach already.

Conversely, you can't train for fitness in August and think it will still somehow be stored in your body in March. That's not how the human body works.

You train for it in July and August to be match ready, then to maintain it through the rest of the season. If you're not 90 minute match ready in August, you're not going to be developing that readiness in December... injury recovery somewhat excepted.

For many players in the squad, they play few minutes of competitive football. If for whatever reason you're not in the starting 11, there is a good chance you won't play much more than an hour of competitive football in a month. On top of international breaks, there are windows in the season to work on fitness. The idea that a players fitness is won and lost in pre-season is not serious.

2 other possibilities

1) Reading squad has more players in it who arent as fit generally. its possible.
2) LR is just making excuses which a new manager can always make because it doesnt reflect badly on them.

[stealthpapes]

I think the common retort has been that, if he's identified a fitness issue, why hasn't he dealt with it? It seems like a common sense argument but I have seen it also mentioned that you don't train fitness during the season and that's what pre-season is for, again, makes sense.

You can, but it comes at a risk of over-training (and hence, more injuries) and you've only got a limited amount of time each week. Read any biographies by recent pros and they'll stress just how much of their time during the week is actually rest and recovery.

IIRC he's brought in a fitness coach already.

Conversely, you can't train for fitness in August and think it will still somehow be stored in your body in March. That's not how the human body works.

Who was claiming that?

[Greatwesternline]

You can, but it comes at a risk of over-training (and hence, more injuries) and you've only got a limited amount of time each week. Read any biographies by recent pros and they'll stress just how much of their time during the week is actually rest and recovery.

IIRC he's brought in a fitness coach already.

Conversely, you can't train for fitness in August and think it will still somehow be stored in your body in March. That's not how the human body works.

Who was claiming that?

No one particularly. Some people have hypothesised that our lack of fitness (if it exists) might be the lack of a pre season or that it will be better next season with a full pre-season.

But I don't think this group of players is unfit as a result of what happened 8 months ago.
It is humanly possible to attain more fitness during a season. In fact the less for you are, the more potential for improvement there is and the quicker the results will be from doing fitness work.

I just think Richards like any sensible manager who comes in midway through a season will say, the fitness levels are bad.
It's like a new government or CEO coming and saying, the finances I've inherited are bad.

Why not claim it? It buys you time.

[stealthpapes]

Must just be a coincidence that we’re conceding late goals and playing as if we’re all shattered.

[Snowflake Royal]

Must just be a coincidence that we’re conceding late goals and playing as if we’re all shattered.

Lol

[Orion1871]

Must just be a coincidence that we’re conceding late goals and playing as if we’re all shattered.

A gameplan of conceding possession for whole halves at a time and facing wave after wave of attacks takes it out of you too.

[Stranded]

Conversely, you can't train for fitness in August and think it will still somehow be stored in your body in March. That's not how the human body works.

Who was claiming that?

No one particularly. Some people have hypothesised that our lack of fitness (if it exists) might be the lack of a pre season or that it will be better next season with a full pre-season.

But I don't think this group of players is unfit as a result of what happened 8 months ago.
It is humanly possible to attain more fitness during a season. In fact the less for you are, the more potential for improvement there is and the quicker the results will be from doing fitness work.

I just think Richards like any sensible manager who comes in midway through a season will say, the fitness levels are bad.
It's like a new government or CEO coming and saying, the finances I've inherited are bad.

Why not claim it? It buys you time.

It's relative isn't it.

Every club has a pre-season to build a base level of fitness into the squad - if a clubs pre-season leaves the players base level lower than other clubs it is going to be very very hard to catch up or surpass other sides as there simply isn't the time to focus on it along with the tactical work and necessary recovery times that playing Sat-Tues-Sat for the majority of the season require (as well as the travel requirements).

So it is not saying that the players are unfit but they are less fit in comparison to where they should be and where the opposition is.

[Hound]

Must just be a coincidence that we’re conceding late goals and playing as if we’re all shattered.

A gameplan of conceding possession for whole halves at a time and facing wave after wave of attacks takes it out of you too.

Also ignores the fact we’ve scored plenty late recently as well - Bradford *2, Luton *2, Wigan, Burton, Lincoln….

I don’t think the majority of players are unfit tbh. Just some of the later signings and in the circumstances that was no real surprise (history of injuries, long seasons, no pre seasons, no club etc). All very predictable really

Obvs the quality wasn’t there and needed to be changed but I expect if we’d stick with Stickland, MoM, Abrefa, Camara, Dorsett, Kelvin - basically those who were starting first game of season, fitness wouldn’t be an issue

[Greatwesternline]

Who was claiming that?

No one particularly. Some people have hypothesised that our lack of fitness (if it exists) might be the lack of a pre season or that it will be better next season with a full pre-season.

But I don't think this group of players is unfit as a result of what happened 8 months ago.
It is humanly possible to attain more fitness during a season. In fact the less for you are, the more potential for improvement there is and the quicker the results will be from doing fitness work.

I just think Richards like any sensible manager who comes in midway through a season will say, the fitness levels are bad.
It's like a new government or CEO coming and saying, the finances I've inherited are bad.

Why not claim it? It buys you time.

It's relative isn't it.

Every club has a pre-season to build a base level of fitness into the squad - if a clubs pre-season leaves the players base level lower than other clubs it is going to be very very hard to catch up or surpass other sides as there simply isn't the time to focus on it along with the tactical work and necessary recovery times that playing Sat-Tues-Sat for the majority of the season require (as well as the travel requirements).

So it is not saying that the players are unfit but they are less fit in comparison to where they should be and where the opposition is.

True. But it also assumes that players out of contract are just sat on a beach, as opposed to doing their own independent training to be fit when the inevitable pre-season transfer appears. Players were either doing their fitness work with us, doing it with the club they were contracted to, or doing something in their own personal time to make sure they were fit when a possibly trail came along.

How many of our current squad were sat idle in July and August last year, i suspect none.

[Snowflake Royal]

There's clearly a limit to what individual home training can achieve though. And it will vary player by player.

[Stranded]

No one particularly. Some people have hypothesised that our lack of fitness (if it exists) might be the lack of a pre season or that it will be better next season with a full pre-season.

But I don't think this group of players is unfit as a result of what happened 8 months ago.
It is humanly possible to attain more fitness during a season. In fact the less for you are, the more potential for improvement there is and the quicker the results will be from doing fitness work.

I just think Richards like any sensible manager who comes in midway through a season will say, the fitness levels are bad.
It's like a new government or CEO coming and saying, the finances I've inherited are bad.

Why not claim it? It buys you time.

It's relative isn't it.

Every club has a pre-season to build a base level of fitness into the squad - if a clubs pre-season leaves the players base level lower than other clubs it is going to be very very hard to catch up or surpass other sides as there simply isn't the time to focus on it along with the tactical work and necessary recovery times that playing Sat-Tues-Sat for the majority of the season require (as well as the travel requirements).

So it is not saying that the players are unfit but they are less fit in comparison to where they should be and where the opposition is.

True. But it also assumes that players out of contract are just sat on a beach, as opposed to doing their own independent training to be fit when the inevitable pre-season transfer appears. Players were either doing their fitness work with us, doing it with the club they were contracted to, or doing something in their own personal time to make sure they were fit when a possibly trail came along.

How many of our current squad were sat idle in July and August last year, i suspect none.

And I doubt any are saying they were but would they have been doing the level of fitness training that the playing style the current manager requires? Almost definitely not.