First time on today this season and the biggest thing that stood out was just how far off professional fitness levels some of them look. First half was okay-ish. There were some decent passages of play and a few players looked useful — Leroy in particular showed some ecsxellent touches and vision.
Second half though was shocking. We disappeared physically. Heavy legs, players looking knackered, no intensity and no ability to keep the same tempo going. - and mental tiredness too..
I’ve trained and competed in endurance sport to a very decent level, so I’m pretty confident I can recognise when somebody is genuinely physically cooked rather than simply not trying. To me, this didn’t look like a lack of effort. It looked like a lack of conditioning.
Some of them quite clearly need what amounts to a proper pre-season. Not a few sharper sessions — a proper block of conditioning work to get them capable of sustaining professional intensity for 90 minutes.
And personally, I’d have them in tomorrow. Recovery work, assessment, then straight into a proper conditioning programme. You can’t just wait for match fitness to magically appear when the physical drop-off is that obvious.
Erabi looked poor , although ironically he looked like one of the fitter players.
There are clearly some decent footballers in the squad, but the drop-off after half-time was massive. If that’s where the fitness levels currently are, there’s a lot of work needed.
Sadly, I think it’s too late.