I’m not sure if you’d classify these as ‘fighting words’ but I think it’s just about as close as you can get.
Whatever way you look at it, you have to admit that it’s quite the honest approach and I commend him for not pulling any punches over the matter.
Speaking to The Star, Blades boss Chris Wilder talked about the fixture congestion that ‘Project Restart’ would take place, with players potentially forced to play the remaining 92 games of the 2019-20 campaign inside 49 days, something that could take a toll on the players physically.
But in the interview he found the idea that players would be complaining about fitness issues of playing games in such a short space of time to be absolutely preposterous.
“For me, you want to be out there on the pitch. We’re talking about fit young men here, athletes as everyone calls them and as they are now these days, so I don’t understand why it’s impossible. Seriously, I don’t. Admittedly, it’s not ideal. But it’s not as if we are talking about it always being like this. It would be for a very short period of time so I think it should be perfectly possible.
These lads stay in shape, pretty much, all the time now.
We’re talking about lads at their peak of their powers, who have access to all this science.”
The thing is, everything is being done to help these players get through what could be a very tricky patch of fixtures, such as the new rule regarding substitutions being upped from three per game to five.
Plus, as Wilder says, this is just going to be a one off thing, it’s not as if players are going to be expected to carry on like this for the rest of their careers, it’s just a temporary thing measure, and with sports science at the level that it is at these days, clubs and players should be more than capable of seeing themselves through it.
So I very much stand with Wilder on this one, and by the sounds of it, you won’t be hearing many Sheffield United players complaining about anything going forward, because I don’t think Wilder will let them.
With 10 games left our players will play an average of every 4.9 days
Most teams only have nine games left so they will play every 5.44 days.
Can’t see what the problem is
I was burnt out, exhausted and mentally drained from my job 30 years ago ……..and I still am, and I’ll still be doing it EVERY DAY for 12-14 hours long after these poor dears retire to their mansions and golf courses.