I was wondering at the start of the season how the World Cup would affect our season. We have a deep pool of talent, but the highest number from any one club to be in the finals. Added to which we didn't get a full pre-season with the squad, and some players came back quite late.
Everything seemed OK player selection/tactics etc wise, so maybe the pre-season wasn't as big an issue as I feared, but I was always conscious that we may just get a bit leggy at the latter stages of the season. Obviously this depended on cup runs and I hadn't been expecting to be domestic treble winners and CL quarter finalists, but there were definitely others out there with the same fears as evidenced by the topic coming up often, especially in pre-match threads.
Like many others, I can't help thinking that it's likely that the number of injuries, their repetition, the time taken for recovery, and the slight drop off in performance/change of style (delete as you think appropriate) was down to not enough of a break last summer.
Do you agree? Could you see signs of weariness creeping in? Was it nothing to do with the World Cup and just normal, or maybe to do with a couple of key injuries?
