Fitness

[Pat McMahon]

You will remember that John Terry, when he played for Chelsea and they had just beaten us, said that they had noticed that Villa always tire on 70 minutes and had based their game plan on it or something.

1. It still seems to be happening
2. You'd think (hope) he'd have been onto this as a member of our staff.

I remember him saying that after the 7-1 in March 2010, during which the barman in the Blarney Stone in Shanghai asked why I didn't change teams.

I pointed out Terry had not used the same argument when we had beaten them 2-0 at Villa Park the previous October.

[Bobby Boy]

I don't think that it is fitness so much as the formation that we've chosen to adopt. By playing with 2 wingers we are leaving big gaps in the centre of the park. The midfielders have so much to do to try to plug the gaps that it isn't surprising if they tire.

It is noticeable how easy we are to play through even with 11 v 10.

Maybe if we are more compact, plug the centre more, have our midfielders closer together we can start controlling games more and tiredness and fatigue should be less of an issue.

the formation rather than fitness levels is what i think has cost us so far.

[mallo]

I don't think that it is fitness so much as the formation that we've chosen to adopt. By playing with 2 wingers we are leaving big gaps in the centre of the park. The midfielders have so much to do to try to plug the gaps that it isn't surprising if they tire.

It is noticeable how easy we are to play through even with 11 v 10.

Maybe if we are more compact, plug the centre more, have our midfielders closer together we can start controlling games more and tiredness and fatigue should be less of an issue.

the formation rather than fitness levels is what i think has cost us so far.

I thought that but this image of our player positions doesn't bear that out - I think we play too deep. Arsenal played very high, but they were at home.



edit: I've learned how to show the images as well.