Pre-season training camps and fixtures (West Ham)

Adam

I don't think it's only about fitness. I ask myself the question 'why did we decide to play a team in the 5th tier German league less than 2 weeks before the season'?

Imo, it is because we wanted to gain confidence and enjoy our football before a long hard season.

Have we managed to do this? No.

thornburyiron

So come the first game of the season he sits them down and says "right we are all fit so what are we going to do and who's going to do it" . Even our assistant manager said we must win this game. Fitness is a prime target but they've had 4 weeks and should be pretty fit now but he should be past putting out scratch sides now. We've got one more game before the season starts and so far he seems to have little idea as to what formation he should be using and personnel. An example is Hart, who he said was our number 1 but he's only played a game and a bit. Zabaleta is our number 1 right back but not playing 90 minutes.
Our defence looked today as if they'd never met before for the most part.
I hope it all clicks on 13th but I'm beginning to have doubts.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

If you want to read into pre-season performances, I guess that's up to you.

But the facts show pre-season 'form' has no bearing on how the real season starts, or how the season goes as a whole.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

I agree somewhat with both sides of the argument

Do I think preseason results should not be read too much into? Yes

Do I think it's ONLY about fitness? No (especially this close to the season)

While I don't think drawing against a 4th tier or whatever German side means that we are gonna struggle this year I do think there is a underlying problem with our defence that looks no closer to being solved than it was last season

I mean that back 5 of Adrian, Zabaleta, Reid, Ogbonna and Cresswell (and fonte and Masuaka 2nd half) have all got decent minutes this preseason but they should not be conceeding 3 goals

If we get smacked 6/7-0 against City I'd be interested to see those that think preseason is pointless if they are still as optimistic for this season

Pearces_Left_Foot

We are playing 60 mins 30 mins changing the team a lot I don't think we have fielded a team yet anything like what will walk out at old Trafford . Generally speaking results don't really matter in pre season usually the worse we are the better we start the season and vice versa from memory ( although my memory isn't what it used to be

Lukerz

We're lightweight in CM.

That's been the way since Bilic arrived. Back four is always under the cosh.

One of the most important positons to solve last summer was a DM. We still need to solve it. Obiang and Fernandes as a pairing is way too lightweight.

MrsGrey

OldCastleSwift said:

My point is Herb that we are at the same stage of pre-season as Liverpool, and whilst we struggled to a draw against a 4th tier German side, Liverpool are beating the countries best team.

To me, that suggests that some teams can get motivated for pre-season games.

Some can, but it doesn't really matter in the great scheme of things.

And rather than compare ourselves to Liverpool in that scenario, surely we are more like Bayern?

Losing in pre-season to a lesser team. ;biggrin

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Pearces_Left_Foot said:

We are playing 60 mins 30 mins changing the team a lot I don't think we have fielded a team yet anything like what will walk out at old Trafford

Adrian
Zabaleta Reid Ogbonna Cresswell
Fernandes Obiang
Snodgrass Ayew Arnoutovic
Martinez

I mean it's not full strength but with Kouyate and Antonio out I think only Hart, Noble and Hernandez are missing

That's pretty much our back line going forward as well....probably shouldn't be conceeding so easily

MrsGrey

thornburyiron said:

Even our assistant manager said we must win this game.

He said that amongst, other things. You can't put too much weight on that comment if you want to be fair, because he also said but in the end it was only a training game

thornburyiron said:

Fitness is a prime target but they've had 4 weeks and should be pretty fit now but he should be past putting out scratch sides now.

No, to get match fit they need to play competitive games. And to get 25 players all equally match fit to play 90 minutes, you have to mix and match your sides as you build up their match fitness.

If you can think of any other way of doing it, I'm sure the PFA would like to know.... then all the Premier League managers could adopt your system instead of doing it the current way. ;biggrin

thornburyiron

But how are you going to get them match fit for 90 minutes if they never play 90. It's ok getting 25 players fit but only 18 can be in a match squad so he should by now have a fairly good idea who that 18 will be. Granted there are injured players but they're mostly not going to be there for the 13th so try those that are for 90 or as close as can be.
One more game before the season kicks off and if that goes pear shaped then it will be a nervy start considering we have three away games to start.
We have though beaten Fulham so that could be an indicator of what to expect in 2018/19 if this season is a disaster. ;biggrin

MrsGrey

thornburyiron said:

But how are you going to get them match fit for 90 minutes if they never play 90. It's ok getting 25 players fit but only 18 can be in a match squad so he should by now have a fairly good idea who that 18 will be. Granted there are injured players but they're mostly not going to be there for the 13th so try those that are for 90 or as close as can be. ;biggrin

I think that's what he's doing, tbh.

Moore_than_a_nick

As someone who has done a few pre-seasons in a team, I can tell you that (at least from my experience) pre-season matches are not just about fitness. Generally managers try to pick teams that, while they might not be their first XI as they need the whole squad to get to the required level, at least have players playing the positions they think they will play in during the season, so they can get used to that position, the formation, the desired style and develop an understanding with teammates, even if that teammate may later be changed to someone else playing in the same position. (Though if possible you'd generally play key pairs of players together, like your first choice CB partnership.) I think Bilic has done this, but the injuries and national team competitions have affected his selections a lot.

I think some here are buying the spin a little too easily - of course managers say pre-season is all about fitness and nothing about results, because they know they may slip up and get some embarrassing results, and they want to minimise fallout from this should it happen. And of course the results are not the most important thing - even after fitness, its about performances and learning. But, as a few of us have said now, firstly the performances have been bad overall and secondly results do affect confidence, and confidence is just as important, if not more important, than fitness after a certain level of fitness.

ASLEFshrugged

Hammerwombat said:

He is class, but also a little "clumsy" shall we say. I like him, like I used to like biffa bacon in the dandy.

I think you mean Bully Beef in The Dandy, Biffa Bacon was Viz!

baracks_a_hammer

I'm not bothered by the pre-season results as we are often rubbish at them. A couple of seasons back we had a shocking pre-season incl an ignominious exit from Europe, and then we went and won at the Emirates first game

grey_til_I_dye

Moore_than

I guess different teams do things differently.

I've watched a good few of our pre-season games over the last few years, and don't recognise the scenario you suggest.

If pre-season form/results affect confidence, how did we go out first game and beat Arsenal 0-2 a couple of seasons ago, after a miserable pre-season?

thornburyiron

I don't think anybody's been bothered by the results per se but more by the overall level of performance which for the most part have been pretty poor. Levels of fitness will partially have had some impact but you can't suddenly switch form on when you feel like it otherwise teams wouldn't have bad runs.
More than once the players or coaches have said that they expected these lesser teams to up their games against us as we are PL but we've only just scraped draws in most of them. Are they expecting the PL big guns to down their games because they're only playing us? Of course not, we have to up ours when we play them but we can't just say of course we will and do it.
I agree Baracks about two seasons ago but we were equally poor last pre season and carried it through until roughly about March with the odd exception of three 1-0 scrappy wins.

Lukerz

Thorn - think you're reading far too much into it. ;ok

So many factors affect pre-season. Fitness, knocks, fears of picking up an injury, no motivation, several changes, kids playing, style of the pitch, the amount of training work done on the day of the game (it's not like they're having days off then playing, they're playing straight after a session or two of training), slight tactical experiments etc etc etc

Wouldn't worry about it. Our defending yesterday was Sunday league, but we won't defend that sloppily when the season kicks off.

We'll play our best XI v City and hope not to get thrashed and pick up no new injuries.

Just a quick scan round of yesterdays pre-season games highlights the point.

St Pauli 4-2 Stoke
Burton 2-1 Leicester
Port Vale 1-1 WBA
Stuttgart 3-3 Huddersfield
Bayern 0-2 Liverpool

Completely random.

You could easily say "we drew 3-3 with a 4th division German side" yet put in good performances and results against Werder Bremen, a respectable Bundesliga team?

IronHerb

Look at last nights results. Leicester lost at Burton, West Brom drew at Port Vale, Stoke lost at St Pauli. So that's 4 teams in the relegation battle then.

thornburyiron

Agree with most of what you're saying Luke but it's you're last two paragraphs which give me concern. Defending sloppily against their equivalent of Hartlepool because of trying to avoid injury or a bit of fatigue is one thing but having virtually no cohesion or apparent idea of where everyone is or what they should be doing is another. Hope it does all miraculously click against Man U.
Going up against City who are miles above anything we've played thus far hoping not to get thrashed doesn't fill me with confidence.

IronHerb

thorn,

It's you that is "hoping not to get thrashed". I don't believe for one moment the team will go into the game thinking that.

And what if we should happen to win the game, does that make us favourites for the Prem?

thornburyiron

Iron herb I was referring to baracks point re hoping not to get thrashed. I'm not suggesting the team would but with one week to go should we be hoping not to get thrashed by another PL team?
If we win I'll be delighted and hope that our performance was good and a big improvement on what we've seen so far. My concern this pre season is that we don't seem to have been able to iron out the problems we had last season and to some extent the season before with our defence and midfield.
Last season the top 5 or 6 were all playing at their expected level and most of them ran us ragged and scored hatfuls. Most of them have improved their attacking options.

Vorselaarhammer

Beating Bayern Munich 0-3 at their ground would have a positive effect more than a negative I would say. Also would give the manager some confidence in the setup used.

So I don't think it's black and white only about fitness, but it is a high percentage fitness.

grey_til_I_dye

Last season the top 5 or 6 were all playing at their expected level and most of them ran us ragged and scored hatfuls

Not really accurate.

Chelsea managed 2 in both games. Spurs managed 3 and 0, Man U 1 and 2

Fair enough, Citeh did us 3 and 5, Liverpool 2 and 4 and Arsenal 5 and 3.

So, rather more of a mixed bag than you seem to recall.

tomkinsworldclass

Pre-season is all about fitness; cohesion, unity and tactics are all largely irrelevant. Yesterday was a good work out and an entertaining game. If we had 11 on the pitch we would've won comfortably but being down to 10 actually made it a better work out than expected. Man city is an interesting game and it will be interesting to see how Slaven lines up but the only thing that matters is the first game of the season. Pre-season results mean nothing. V Man city I would actually like us to experiment to potentially see how a different tactical approach could work in preparation for when we play then in the league as MCFC will play how they always play under pep, so why not try something different?

Moore_than_a_nick

grey_til_I_dye said:

If pre-season form/results affect confidence, how did we go out first game and beat Arsenal 0-2 a couple of seasons ago, after a miserable pre-season?

Maybe our pre-season form was so bad they got a rocket up their backsides and went out into the first EPL game all pumped up. Obviously you can turn confidence around by other means. But it seems to me better not to have to.

However, I think some may be over-reading what I said about the importance of results. I tried to stress that its about fitness, performance (practicing positions, tactics, formations) and learning. Results are not very important. But I think when you play a team that is so far beneath you in the footballing pyramid, just losing the first half like we did will knock some of our players' confidence. But that's mainly due to their realising they performed badly, not to the result per se.

jay_in_cpt

Most important thing for me is 1st not picking up any injuries , regaining match fitness and results follow..
The West Ham way ;wink ;ok

OldCastleSwift

tomkinsworldclass said:

If we had 11 on the pitch we would've won comfortably

We were 2-1 down when it was 11 v 11, so I'm not so confident thaty we would have

Moore_than_a_nick

Watching, and pausing, the match highlights suggests to me that their freekick would have curled around our two-man wall even if Fernandes hadn't have broken from it. So I still think blame lies with Adrian.

Not sure if Fernandes broke because he was worried the taker would pass it to the player to his right, or because he could see he was shaping to curl it to the side of Fernandes.

Moore_than_a_nick

Also, some of us mistakenly credited the assist for the second to Snodders - it was a good long ball from Reid.

IronHerb

Reid did really well then considering he was sent off 10 minutes previous to our second goal. ;hmm