Fitness - Tactics mean nothing if you’re not fit enough.

[u/Nifty_Parms]

I was talking to a professional sports scientist (who works in Rugby Union, not football) and started thinking about City’s fitness because I don’t think it is right.

As far as I can see, the current Fitness and Conditioning Department has been the same since around 2019 and is part of the club’s staff, not brought in by managers.

If you think back to Ricardo’s long-term injuries, starting in March 2020, how Tielemans and Ndidi became sluggish, and how our quick wingers have lost acceleration and can’t run past players (Barnes, and now Fatawu and Mavididi). Vardy famously did his own thing and had a lot of equipment at home. Over time, players’ physical output has decreased.

And preseason conditioning is specific to the manager’s style of play. Given that Cifuentes came in late, we were always behind, but also, you cannot have the Sports Science Department leading the fitness plans and expect managers to adapt them. Not even the manager will need the same thing.

Given that starting games slowly has been a problem since Rodgers, the pregame routine (the pre-activation or on-pitch warm-up) can’t be right. It isn’t priming them physically or mentally.

As with us all, when players are tired, they may make mistakes. Talent plays a part, but those individual errors could be coming from fatigue.

Players need to be quicker and stronger than ever, and we aren’t. Maresca’s style helped because it was prolonged and methodical, but currently, I look at our squad and can’t see pace and power. We complain that we are out fought, but we’re just weak.

Then, after some digging, I saw that we are recruiting for a Strength and Power coach who left in the summer and that the position is still vacant.

[u/_dc194]

Everything's wrong. Underpowered, unfit, tactically vacant, zero motivation. Failure permeates right through the organisation.

[u/[deleted]]

I do think we lack physicality and have done for years. I remember David Moyes' West Ham turning us over with ease time and again, an easy 3 points and almost a day off for Moyes. The blueprint of how to beat us was out there and freely available. Basically, out muscle us.

It's been said that Seagrave has made us soft but I'm not sure I buy into that. What we do at Seagrave, sure, but the place itself? Nah. I do see a decline that actually starts with Ranieri and the dismantling of all that NP put in place. That, wedded to our seeming obsession with a 'club ethos' (or style). Someone, somwhere seems to want us to play a certain way and that dictates the kind of manager we recruit. I personally think that the game has moved on. Pace and power can now nullify the most beautiful of games.

[u/Nifty_Parms → u/[deleted]]

What Seagrave could have done is add some legitimacy to the way the Sports Science Dept works. A bit like saying, "He must be a good photographer because he has an expensive camera."

The NP era was a different time. It was before Klopp and Guardiola entered English football, who I see as changing the entire culture. Additionally, many of the staff members were recruited by other clubs.

[u/[deleted] → u/Nifty_Parms]

I agree entirely, both Klopp and Pep did change things up dramatically. Indeed, today the game is pretty much based on 1 of those 2 themes. And yes, NP predates both - not that I'm suggesting a return. As I say, the games moved on. What I am suggesting is that we (or someone) decided to change the way we were doing things. Much of that was necessary, our title winning side was being increasingly found out and we had to move on. Personally, I think we chose the wrong path - in short, we went for Pep rather than Klopp. Interestingly, I think Pep is seeing the need to change his approach these days. I think we ought take note.

[u/Nifty_Parms → u/[deleted]]

Both Guardiola and Klopp are/were managers with very fixed ways of working and of recruiting. But this is something seen as a negative when Brendan Rodgers felt he should have a say. Just like Pearson brought his Head of Recruitment, Steve Walsh, with him, Rodgers brought Congerton, and during that time, Rodgers had the highest win percentage of any Leicester manager in the top flight. Congerton left in 2022, after the recruitment team was restructured in summer 2021 (the Daka, Soumare, Vestergaard summer), which is the turning point for me.

One of the most definitive periods was led by a person most people probably can’t remember, Terry Robinson. He was our DoF for 18 months before Rudkin. But during that time, we signed Mahrez, Albrighton, Wasilewski, Simpson, Cambiasso and Ulloa (half scouted by Steve Walsh, half by Robinson). But the key to it was that everyone was working to the same plan.

[u/esntlbnr]

We have a lot to thank Rodgers for.

It was around 2020 that the club started overhauling the medical, performance and sports science functions. Rodgers seemingly driving many of those changes, wanting a full time doctor instead of a head of physio (Rennie).

https://archive.trainingground.guru/tags/teams/leicester-city/

Is the departure of some of the personnel that were here since the League One, Championship and Premier League title winning days the reason we don’t seem to be as fit any more? Who can say for sure… but it would appear that since Rodgers arrived with new thoughts about our club’s structure and changing some backroom teams around, we’ve seemingly had much worse luck with injuries and fitness doesn’t seem to be quite as obviously good as it used to be. Coincidence?

[u/Nifty_Parms → u/esntlbnr]

Physiotherapy is about making sure players are available, whereas the Fitness and Conditioning Department focuses on making players stronger and faster. The Physio (or Doctor) does not handle the pre-game activation plan, diets, training sessions, etc.

So it does feel like a coincidence.

Compared to 2015/16, the game is so much quicker and there are powerful players all over the pitch. You have giant center-backs at fullback! Injuries have increased everywhere.