Steven Gerrard: Rangers weren't fit enough to be successful last season

[craig 5,199]

50 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

He's been been raiding Liverpool for his back room staff and you would imagine he would extend that to asking the sports science department there to recommend some quality people.

 

I suspect that this venture is every bit as important to SG as it is to us so he will be going above and beyond to get every detail right. We all know where his ultimate ambition lies and he would do that ambition no good at all if he doesn't excel in this post.

Jordan Milson and Michael Beale came with Gerrard directly from Liverpool I believe.

[JFK-1 1,682]

14 minutes ago, craig said:

Jordan Milson and Michael Beale came with Gerrard directly from Liverpool I believe.

I had a look at a Liverpool forum after the arrival of Beale with Gerrard. Though most wished him luck some were mightily pissed off that he had bailed out in their view as apparently he had only recently arrived and they rated him very highly.

[Malangsob 1,216]

I find it shocking to read that a professional fitba team is not fit. Maybe i have followed the sport from afar for too long but is this common? One would think that fitness in professional sports as a team is a given. Of course there are members of every squad no matter the game who show up to training camp 'fat, dumb and happy' but an entire squad? Odd I would think. 

[JFK-1 1,682]

1 hour ago, Malangsob said:

I find it shocking to read that a professional fitba team is not fit. Maybe i have followed the sport from afar for too long but is this common? One would think that fitness in professional sports as a team is a given. Of course there are members of every squad no matter the game who show up to training camp 'fat, dumb and happy' but an entire squad? Odd I would think. 

I think we can read into it that they're fit enough to play 90 minutes of professional football and much fitter than we are but in Gerrard's view not as fit as they could be. I have seen players running out of gas and effectively slowing down as the second half progresses.

 

If we're going to be playing the high intensity Liverpool style that's hard to maintain for 90 minutes if you're not as fit as you possibly can be.

 

And if indeed that is the way we're going to be playing which as yet is still an unknown i'm going to be interested to see if it pushes any opposition into the realms of exhaustion in the last quarter or so of the game. Because they're going to have to keep up with that high intensity if that's how we play it.

[pete 2,499]

McCoists team obviously wasn't as fit as they should have been and rumoured to have had more time on the golf course than in training. Dhalia's Celtic team also looked totally unfit and were chasing shadows when we beat them 3-2. I don't think it is all about being physically fit there is also a mentally fit and that is where a lot of players fail.

[buster. 4,816]

The recent Derek Ferguson and Ian Durrant interview (by Simon Ferry) featured an interesting line from both that we weren't as fit as some of the other teams in the division when they played. DF gave Hearts as an example, saying that when he joined them it took a while before he was able to get to their levels.

 

 

[buster. 4,816]

9 minutes ago, pete said:

McCoists team obviously wasn't as fit as they should have been and rumoured to have had more time on the golf course than in training. Dhalia's Celtic team also looked totally unfit and were chasing shadows when we beat them 3-2. I don't think it is all about being physically fit there is also a mentally fit and that is where a lot of players fail.

I think that was a good example of a squad that wasn't on the same page as the manager.

ie. no matter what was tried by the manager regards a 'professional approach', it wouldn't translate into results on the park.

[Gaffer 1,665]

16 minutes ago, buster. said:

The recent Derek Ferguson and Ian Durrant interview (by Simon Ferry) featured an interesting line from both that we weren't as fit as some of the other teams in the division when they played. DF gave Hearts as an example, saying that when he joined them it took a while before he was able to get to their levels.

 

 

I listened to that too.  Our club really was in the dark ages when it came to fitness.  When I listened to Durrant and Ferguson talk about the running they had to do during pre season for Rangers it made me think about how much time was wasted during pre season.  Running up and down the dunes at Gullane only really develops their ability to run up and down sand dunes, but it doesn't really help them in a game of football.  Footballers require a specific type of fitness which requires balance, sharp changes of direction, and bursts of speed.  Running for 15km on sand doesn't help with that.  So when SG says they weren't fit enough, he means for a game of football in the style he wants them to play.  They would all have been fit enough to run a marathon, but that's useless.

 

MW understood the theory too, and there's no doubt our team under him and Weir was very fit.  We just lacked the ability to change the plan.

 

The ironic thing about the way SG wants us to play is that if you do chase the ball down and win it back early, it's the other team that needs to be fit because they'll spend more of the game without the ball.  Last season, especially against Celtic, it's no wonder we tired.  We allowed them to play and didn't press them.  There is no team fit enough to manage that.

 

There's a reason most top teams score goals in the last 8 minutes of games.  It takes about an hour of intensive work to tire a pro player.  After that they don't concentrate as well and gaps open up.  We need to get back to that, and being in our opponents' faces from second one of the game will help us win more games, even if it is towards the end of the match.  That's a big part of what the football winning mentality is.

 

It looks like Stevie G has got that into their heads now.

[buster. 4,816]

9 minutes ago, Gaffer said:

I listened to that too.  Our club really was in the dark ages when it came to fitness.  When I listened to Durrant and Ferguson talk about the running they had to do during pre season for Rangers it made me think about how much time was wasted during pre season.  Running up and down the dunes at Gullane only really develops their ability to run up and down sand dunes, but it doesn't really help them in a game of football.  Footballers require a specific type of fitness which requires balance, sharp changes of direction, and bursts of speed.  Running for 15km on sand doesn't help with that.  So when SG says they weren't fit enough, he means for a game of football in the style he wants them to play.  They would all have been fit enough to run a marathon, but that's useless.

 

MW understood the theory too, and there's no doubt our team under him and Weir was very fit.  We just lacked the ability to change the plan.

 

The ironic thing about the way SG wants us to play is that if you do chase the ball down and win it back early, it's the other team that needs to be fit because they'll spend more of the game without the ball.  Last season, especially against Celtic, it's no wonder we tired.  We allowed them to play and didn't press them.  There is no team fit enough to manage that.

 

There's a reason most top teams score goals in the last 8 minutes of games.  It takes about an hour of intensive work to tire a pro player.  After that they don't concentrate as well and gaps open up.  We need to get back to that, and being in our opponents' faces from second one of the game will help us win more games, even if it is towards the end of the match.  That's a big part of what the football winning mentality is.

 

It looks like Stevie G has got that into their heads now.

Interesting post Gaffer 

 

I look back over decades with a degree of frustration because most of the time, I don't think we've been run in a professional way that befits a big club. We could often get away with it domestically but it will have been shown up more in European football #BiggerStrongerFaster

 

It's not all about fitness and as well as ability/talent, a team spirit can go a long way and I think this was very apparent in 92/93.

 

 

 

 

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

On 18/06/2018 at 07:07, Gaffer said:

He might be right in saying they weren't physically fit enough, but for me it was more about their mental fitness.  The team collapsed mentally when Celtic went down to ten men.  There was no belief that we could win that match.  The team then failed to recover mentally after that and we went on to record some poor results and performances.

I think a simpler way of putting it is we had a crap team and they got what they deserved.