We work with a company called Zero7 around Jan this year which is basically an AI software which helps to predict injuries and manage minutes. It seemed to work really earlier this year when we were competing on all fronts and needed to manage the squad effectively. But something does not look good this season - whether it down to the software / medical staff / Klopp, who knows. The players already look goosed and that was straight after pre-season.
i personally think preseason was over truncated by LFC and the tour took up a full 1.5 weeks of a 4 week preseason and killed our prep. other clubs with 1 game a week seemed to have started earlier and got fitter and have also a massive advantage with no europe and a 6 week mid season break. brighton are one. newcastle another.
I just don't understand how we got it wrong - we've been so good since Klopp arrived. The processes are pretty much tried and tested.
Its hard to pin point. We started on july 2nd in preseason and had some players returning late form the pointless national league tournament. (37 days after CL final defeat) This suggests a short break after last season of about 3 weeks total for the players (hangover comment you made is pretty logical here) we went to bangkok and then singapore on the 9th. we got a bare week at our own training ground. so we've spent a week then in extreme humidity. we lose ox on his hamstring pull in thr 45th min of second friendly. we flew then on the 16th to austria and then that represented a week and a half preseason really with 2 games in it. we played city on the 31st july. 30 days total preseason. this suggests to me that we spent too long travelling in a truncated preseason and not enough working. I took a look at fulham's preseason. they started on july 2nd like us but just took a short hop to portugal and stayed there playing 4 quality preseason games in tournament form (nice, benfica, estroil) ,and came home to play villareal. More time to train Less players off doing nations league Better conditions to train in Less games to play No community shield game. We look underbaked but being fair, chelsea look terrible. city don't look absolutely perfect yet.
brighton preseason (as one of the really good starters) started 2nd july again. Played behind closed doors friendly on the 9th at the training ground and then went to portugal for a week and played again behind closed doors. they were then bac in England on the 18th July for a full3 weeks prep with friendlies for the kick off. like.... the contrast in time is clear. We travelled further (see how palace are very average as well) did less work as a result, spent half the remaining time prepping for the community shield ****.. We played a lot of "high intensity" friendlies which consisted of red bull teams kicking 7 shades out of our players and we ended up with a **** ton of injuries. we only progressed to 60mins for first team the week before the community shield. normally we would be looking for players to be well ready.
Well we won one thing so a treble in theory might still be possible but not quite sure what quad is still available.
ermmmmm. no. it thought you were adding the league, cl and women's trophy to the community shield but whatever.