The above approach worked well for me so, having read up about the number of soft-tissue injuries occurring now, I contacted medical people in the game who I respect to try to find out why.
Obviously I wondered if strength and conditioning programmes like the ones I used had dropped off, but I got a big rebuff on that. I was told that, as in most sports, footballers today have got bigger, stronger and quicker.
It is not down to the players playing more games, either. Manchester United had 66 competitive games in 2008-09, Liverpool had 63 in 2021-22 and this season Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal will all experience something similar.
So, what has happened over the past five years to affect our top players?
Today, there are more than two or three quick players in every team – the difference there is massive compared to when I started out as a manager more than 30 years ago.
That means that, while the distance covered by players has not altered much over time, the players are accelerating more, and also more often. It leads to much more stress in the top levels of their payload.
Surely this can be managed? Yes, but it is getting harder. Not because players are playing more games, but because they are playing more in a shorter period of time.
Over the past few years, players have started to question the amount of games they are now asked to play at international level, on top of the demands of club football.
Fifa and Uefa have increased everything, not just the fixture lists, but the number and size of competitions too.
Let’s start with this year’s World Cup, where a record 48 teams will be competing and playing a total of 104 games – double the number the last time the tournament was held in the United States in 1994. It will take 72 group games to lose just 16 of those teams before the first knockout stage.
Similarly, the new Champions League format also has a busload of teams.
It takes 144 games to get rid of 12 of the 36 clubs, before you even reach the knockout stages, and I have completely ignored all these early matches as I don’t understand how teams can lose game after game but still qualify for the next round.
Add to this two Europa League competitions and a new Club World Cup format and you can understand how busy Fifa and Uefa have been in building up their own empires.
