Who has more chance

[The Moonlit Knight]

I would argue Sandro will be first choice, eventually. I can see either Sig or Townsend ahead of Chadli too.

Sandro would be in my side for sure, but I think AVB sees Dembele and Paulinho as his preferred midfield duo behind the number 10.

 

[braineclipse]

I travel internationally for work, and believe me the travelling is VERY tiring. It's even worse when you're just travelling somewhere for a couple of days within Europe is even more tiring than doing a transatlantic jaunt where you know you're going to be there Monday to Friday.

I have it on good authority that high level professional football matches also can be very tiring.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

I have it on good authority that high level professional football matches also can be very tiring.

Of course they are, but these guys are professional athletes. I'm very good friends with a top class marathon runner (top 0.5% of the world). He does marathons all around the world and he tells me the travelling is far more fatiguing than the actual marathon. Physical exercise for a top athlete is easy to recuperate from. It's normally a day's complete rest. But what really does people in, is any sort of break from a routine. Especially a break from the normal sleeping patterns.

 

[braineclipse]

Of course they are, but these guys are professional athletes. I'm very good friends with a top class marathon runner (top 0.5% of the world). He does marathons all around the world and he tells me the travelling is far more fatiguing than the actual marathon. Physical exercise for a top athlete is easy to recuperate from. It's normally a day's complete rest. But what really does people in, is any sort of break from a routine. Especially a break from the normal sleeping patterns.

So what you're saying is that if next home game in the EL Dembele played the game whereas Paulinho went on a two day trip to somewhere reasonably far away in Europe, did some warm up routines and some light runs, sat on a bench in the park for a couple of hours then slept in a hotel before returning to London, Paulinho would feel the greatest impact for our Sunday game of the two of them?

 

[superfaisty]

Maybe its a personality thing but I love when holtby comes on because he does generally lift the tempo and has invarably had an impact on most games.

JD on the other hand hasn't as yet had the same impact coming on as sub- and I thiink will get more ****ed if he doesn't get more involved. He, rightly or wrongly, is judged on goals scored, which means the longer he carries on as supersub the more selfish he'll become when he comes on, the more trigger happy he'll be. The worst, and sometimes the best, of JD is his singlemindedness to score goals.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

So what you're saying is that if next home game in the EL Dembele played the game whereas Paulinho went on a two day trip to somewhere reasonably far away in Europe, did some warm up routines and some light runs, sat on a bench in the park for a couple of hours then slept in a hotel before returning to London, Paulinho would feel the greatest impact for our Sunday game of the two of them?

I'm saying it's a very real possibility. If the travelling player struggled to sleep for the two days he was away, then he would be well below optimum fitness come match day, where as a player who kept his routine would have a higher chance of "peaking". But it's not me saying that. It's top professional athletes and science. It's not MY opinion. I bow down to those with superior knowledge on this and will happily take their opinion combined with when I travel for work I can do a 20 hour week+ travelling and feel twice as fatigued as if I do a 60 hour week at home.

 

[braineclipse]

Maybe its a personality thing but I love when holtby comes on because he does generally lift the tempo and has invarably had an impact on most games.

JD on the other hand hasn't as yet had the same impact coming on as sub- and I thiink will get more ****ed if he doesn't get more involved. He, rightly or wrongly, is judged on goals scored, which means the longer he carries on as supersub the more selfish he'll become when he comes on, the more trigger happy he'll be. The worst, and sometimes the best, of JD is his singlemindedness to score goals.

I agree fully about Holtby. Doesn't matter who the opposition is or what the score is, he just ups the tempo of our pressing and our passing anyway. Great energy, great to see and a great ability to have in some players in the squad.

I'm saying it's a very real possibility. If the travelling player struggled to sleep for the two days he was away, then he would be well below optimum fitness come match day, where as a player who kept his routine would have a higher chance of "peaking". But it's not me saying that. It's top professional athletes and science. It's not MY opinion. I bow down to those with superior knowledge on this and will happily take their opinion combined with when I travel for work I can do a 20 hour week+ travelling and feel twice as fatigued as if I do a 60 hour week at home.

Source?

I respect the opinion of both yourself and your marathon running friend of course, but that's different from saying that this is supported by science and top professional athletes. And I think there might be a difference between marathon runners and footballers in this regard.

 

[AdamB]

It's a choice between Defoe in very good form and Soldado in alright form

Think this is a very, very valid point. Problem for JD is htat he's in 9/10 form whereas Soldado is in 6/10 form and JD still isn't clearly better.

The problem which I have with people criticising Soldado is that he contributes more to open play than JD does, despite his form, and its not as if he's missing chances. Its hard to think of many (or any) chances he's missed. His problem I think is that the service to him has been very poor so far (with Townsend shooting all the time and Eriksen having missed the first 3 games) whereas in the cup games, the standard of opposition has generally been Championship standard at best (Tblisi, Tromso, Anzhi and Villa reserves wouldn't survive in the PL) so we're carved out better chances....and JD has played more in those games so had more scoring opportunities. There's no way of proving it however had JD played in the league games and Soldado in the cup games, I'm not sure JD would have scored from open play

 

[billyiddo]

re Soldado/Defoe - if we were having this discussion in say the new year - Soldado struggling to consistently score and Defoe banging them in when played in the cups then id be more inclined to give Defoe the nod - however at this early stage of Soldados time here i think it's more important to give him a good run of games in order to find his feet. we've all read the comparisons with other top forwards who struggled to score when moving to new clubs, this isn't an anomaly and if you take in to account our relatively new forward line as a whole then it becomes even less surprising to see a forward who thrives off of the passing from the players behind and the understanding built up between them 'struggle'.

 

[Roland Beurre]

re Soldado/Defoe - if we were having this discussion in say the new year - Soldado struggling to consistently score and Defoe banging them in when played in the cups then id be more inclined to give Defoe the nod - however at this early stage of Soldados time here i think it's more important to give him a good run of games in order to find his feet. we've all read the comparisons with other top forwards who struggled to score when moving to new clubs, this isn't an anomaly and if you take in to account our relatively new forward line as a whole then it becomes even less surprising to see a forward who thrives off of the passing from the players behind and the understanding built up between them 'struggle'.

I can't really argue with that. It would still be nice to see JD smack one in against the Irons on Sunday, though!

 

[Spur of the moment]

Soldado was frankly poor against Chelsea on Saturday. Average rating on here was around 6 but it would surely have been much lower were it not for his fortuitous assist for Siggy's goal.