Thetownend.com

Whats your take on this?

No British clubs won in europe this week in the Champions League, and they all blamed tiredness. Now don't get me wrong, yes English clubs play lots of games in a season but they are supposed to be trained athletes and for it, they get paid hell of a lot of money. I jsut cannot swallow the tiredness excuse.  >:(

They're all told to say that by their chairmen. It's a conspiracy to try and push the premier league into reducing it's size so the top teams get a bigger share of tv money.

If they spent their money more wisely (i.e bigger squads) it wouldn't matter that the majority of players arent as fit as they should/could be.

They are supposed to be fit, I don't buy this tiredness, ok if they have played Tues / Sat for a number of weeks then ok maybe, but the premiershit dont, they are given days off training etc to help them 'recover' also so no tiredness is an excuse as they didn't play well, and they have big squads as well, look at Man U who could afford to leave Rooney & Berba on the bench - 2 of their better players.

The premiershit are pampered, the club plays in europe on weds so they can play on Sun not Sat like the lower leagues, the FA are scared of them.

How many games these days in the premier kick off at 3pm on Sat, not many.

This week there are only 3 games that kick off at 3pm on Saturday in the Premiership.

Did Fergie blame tiredness?  I thought he just decided not to start Rooney and Berbatov for Saturday's match, not blaming tiredness for the result, as he was pretty happy with the second half display anyway.

I dont  understand the link between the money they earn and the tiredness,it got nothing to do with it.Get a better arguement.

Because they get paid so much there should be no excuse for lack lustre performances and excuses.

If they were paid on appearances and performance, then would they be tired as much?!!?

It's all down to tiredness, the poor clubs. Until a lucrative post/pre/during season tour in a far flung continent comes along to boost shirt sales.

Id imagine they would yes,most players are on significant win bonuses anyway.

Nobody would expect a Top Race Horse to race twice a week for months on end..

To be fair playing a friendly in Saudi Arabia, or Japan, or wherever isn't really going to take that much out of you.  Clubs go away for breaks all the time, if a friendly is played at the same time, then fair enough.

its bollocks.look at what tennis players can do.

Tennis is a girls game.

Look at athletes, they don't get payed even half of what footballers do in the prem and they perform a hell of a lot better than them. And some have to work in jobs as well, normal every day jobs that you wouldn't see someone like ronaldo or rooney even contemplating doing. Fucks me of how they can winge about playing a 90 minute football match every week, i mean it's not exactly a hard life is it?

It is a valid argument only if you are playing teams of: A) Atomic supermen. B) Robots. C) Atomic superbots. Otherwise everyone is tired and it is a level playing field.

And with A,B or C. I might watch a bit more of the Champions League.

On what basis do athletes "perform a hell of a lot better" than footballers? 

How can you measure that? 

What are you on about?

what athletes?

I reckon running around a track a few times a month is no where near as hard as 90 minutes of football.

As evidenced by what exactly ? The huge haul of track and field medals we got in Beijing ?

It's all the fault of the clubs for insisting on extra qualifying games in the Champions League, making sure that they can afford to make one slip up and still qualify for the later stages.

If they want to play less games, then go back to having a non seeded draw and a knock out competition

Dont forget players are in training 4/5 times a week

footballers dont train hard all the time dave.alot of it will be recovery work,stretching etc.
what i dont get is why can a tennis player play a 5 set match,then after an hour or so go and play a doubles match?
that to me seems knackering

Don't be silly they wouldn't get as much money.....

Tiredness is simply an excuse and it's total bullshit.  When the European Cup (natch) was good and English clubs won it 7 years out of 8 (Liverpool 4, Forest 2, Villa 1) they played more league matches, had replays in the FA Cup, took the League Cup seriously (and had replays in that), and English football was stronger for it.  In fact, if they play too many games then the answer is clearly to reduce the number of games in Europe by only having the Champions in the European Cup and playing a two-legged knock-out system.  (Oh, and redistribute the wealth more evenly thorugh the leagues).

You could also argue that the medical knowledge, re-coup proceedures and nutritional knowledge is greater now also.

tiredness eh? so all the teams that they were playing dont have domestic competitions? Celtic played hearts away on sunday 24 hours after Man U played hull.

Tiredness bollocks. they just all played shit.

i dont doubt players get tired but they shouldnt use it as a excuse for losing a game, no matter how much money you are paid there is only so much the human body can take