It's not Pellers..It's not even the team..

[Burtonblue]

Sorry but it IS Pellegrini's responsibility.
His philosophy of scoring more than the opposition is at the complete expense of any competent defending.
We are consistently unbalanced and rubbish the minute we lose possession. It's been this way ever since his reign started.
Kompany has bailed us out of trouble on many occasions but a defence should not rely on a single individual to be successful.

Leicester taught us a lesson yesterday by having a well organised defence where everybody new their job and did it.
They played as a team with defenders taking care of defending, midfielders stopping our midfield play, and forwards scaring the shit out of our all too often exposed central defenders.

Pellegrini's tactics (and a few players not up to required standards) are to blame for our underachievement. I like the man as a person but can't wait for him to go so this team can fulfill its true potential.

 

[mancity1]

Having researched this area extensively as part of my PhD, the reason for our injuries can be attributed to a number of things, including:

• Players exposed to fixture congestion (i.e., 3 matches in 7 days)
• Lack of sufficient recovery between these matches
  
• Suboptimal baseline levels of fitness
• Players participating in matches when not fully recovered (increasing susceptibility to soft tissue injuries)
• Players returning from a previous injury and exposed to high match and training loads too early
• Exposing players to a style that induces large loads on players and not taking in to account external factors

The last four are obviously all intrinsically linked, and can all be controlled by one man - the manager. So Pellegrini is definitely to blame.

Like Arsenal, the reason they are susceptible to so many injuries is due to Wenger's methods. The same with Klopp, latterly at Dortmund and now at Liverpool.

Pep's players also have high rates of injuries so don't expect it to change next season.

That's why you bring in players who are less likely to be suspect to soft tissue injuries and can run at top speed from stationary position quickly and long periods of time without putting stress on their calfs , thighs , groins and hamstrings.

Their body shapes and muscles and tendons are more defined and they stand up to the pace and physicality of football better than most.

I played football at a reasonable level for years and never had a soft tissue injury.

AFL is a game that has more soft tissue injuries than most yet some players and top ones at that go through a ten year career without one.

Its not rocket science , its sports science.

 

[mancity1]

Sorry but it IS Pellegrini's responsibility.
His philosophy of scoring more than the opposition is at the complete expense of any competent defending.
We are consistently unbalanced and rubbish the minute we lose possession. It's been this way ever since his reign started.
Kompany has bailed us out of trouble on many occasions but a defence should not rely on a single individual to be successful.

Leicester taught us a lesson yesterday by having a well organised defence where everybody new their job and did it.
They played as a team with defenders taking care of defending, midfielders stopping our midfield play, and forwards scaring the shit out of our all too often exposed central defenders.

Pellegrini's tactics (and a few players not up to required standards) are to blame for our underachievement. I like the man as a person but can't wait for him to go so this team can fulfill its true potential.

It will be a new team , the vast majority of this squad has to go over the next couple of seasons and everybody in the club knows it including the players.

 

[Benarbia]

Can he not see it, or does he just not care, as he thinks his 'way' will prevail in the end even if we appear to be defending like shit ? Why not just drop Delph back a bit to cover it for instance ?

I can't figure whether he's clueless or stubborn, but either way, he's unfit for the job & a very lucky man.

You're probably right as he harps on about sticking to the attacking way but sadly a trick pony does not win out and our record against the top 6 is nothing short of abysmal

 

[HKB]

With the squad we have we should be pissing this league, heaven know's how many points we are down on last year or the year before. The manager's biggest problem is his loyalties with players who are not doing it for whatever reason, Yaya, Demichelis etc. Surely it would have been better to not let the 2 young centre backs go on loan for the season (the ones who played against Real Madrid pre season).

 

[LHarper]

That's why you bring in players who are less likely to be suspect to soft tissue injuries and can run at top speed from stationary position quickly and long periods of time without putting stress on their calfs , thighs , groins and hamstrings.

Their body shapes and muscles and tendons are more defined and they stand up to the pace and physicality of football better than most.

I played football at a reasonable level for years and never had a soft tissue injury.

AFL is a game that has more soft tissue injuries than most yet some players and top ones at that go through a ten year career without one.

Its not rocket science , its sports science.

Current injury screening tools are not sensitive enough to really assess a player's risk to injury (a friend of mine just published a scientific review in the area).

There are number of different tools out there to try and find out who may or may not be susceptible to injury but one of the major factors is if the player has had a previous soft tissue injury.

Sport science has still got a long way to go to try and predict and reduce injuries. Leicester City and Swansea City have two of the best sport science departments in the country and it's no surprise to me they have had the least number of soft tissue injuries this season. One of the major factors in Leicester's success (helped by the fact a completely different XI played in their cup games).

 

[Damocles]

Sport science has still got a long way to go to try and predict and reduce injuries. Leicester City and Swansea City have two of the best sport science departments in the country and it's no surprise to me they have had the least number of soft tissue injuries this season. One of the major factors in Leicester's success (helped by the fact a completely different XI played in their cup games).

So what you're saying is that not utilising our youth players in the cup has led to us having significantly increased risk of injuries in the first team due to over-playing and lack of rest periods?

 

[Neville Kneville]

Current injury screening tools are not sensitive enough to really assess a player's risk to injury (a friend of mine just published a scientific review in the area).

There are number of different tools out there to try and find out who may or may not be susceptible to injury but one of the major factors is if the player has had a previous soft tissue injury.

Sport science has still got a long way to go to try and predict and reduce injuries. Leicester City and Swansea City have two of the best sport science departments in the country and it's no surprise to me they have had the least number of soft tissue injuries this season. One of the major factors in Leicester's success (helped by the fact a completely different XI played in their cup games).

Isn't ours supposed to be cutting edge stuff though ?

 

[artfuldodger]

Some brilliant posts that have saved me having to write the same thing. Injuries have had an impact, but you have to question why the players bought over the last 2 years have been so poor and why young players have not been utilised.

 

[Big Blue Mick]

Of course injuries have had an impact but we still had enough players available yesterday to put up a better fight than that. I doubt leicester have had it that easy all season. It was a time to be pragmatic yesterday, look at what we had available and who we were playing; set up solid and then hope aguero with a moment of magic or a sub could come on and win it. A draw would not have been a disaster yesterday. I honestly thought Pellegrini was learning when we went to Old Trafford in October with Aguero and Silva missing. He set us up in a solid formation and if our final ballwould have been better we could have nicked it. I know a lot of blues disagree and think we should have gone at them that day but it was the right thing to do as they were hitting a bit of form and we were short. I felt sorry for Delph again yesterday, that is the 3rd or 4th time he had played on the left and he has been hooked every time. Delph helping out in the middle yesterday, Clichy at left back, Sagna at CB with possibly even MD as sweeper and no high line would have led to a different game. Most of us could see it beforehand so it's not even being wise after the event. Oh and conceding 2 from set pieces doesn't fuckin help either. 13 games to go and only 6 points behind. 11 wins would probably get us the league but I would be more amazed if we did it than either the 2012 or 2014 comebacks.