Used to love heading their goal kick after Palace/Joiners/Blue Orchid the day before!

IMO the modern professional footballer is now much more of an athlete than they ever have been before. Even when you look back at the footballers of the 90's. Even the greats of Le Tissier and Gazza, although they have the talent, I doubt would get anywhere near a current Prem team based on fitness alone. I think the modern footballer is fine tuned to the limit to get every possible fitness advantage out of them but I suspect in doing that they are pushed closer to the injury threshold and thus why they need to be protected more. (Conversely we also see now injury layoffs being much shorter due to sports science etc).

As for clubs calling off games due to Covid running through their squads, of course I do not say they should not take precautionary steps etc. but in reality these clubs have Development squads and academies etc. If they are U23 they do not have to be registered in Prem squad lists so why can't clubs just make up their matchday squads with players from these? As a fan I'd welcome seeing games go ahead but with new young players being given an opportunity.

The thing that gets me is people saying Gallagher can take over a spot in Chelsea's midfield, and at the same time, he was exhausted playing against So'ton. He's 21 years old, and with Chelsea, he would be expected to play PL and CL matches in the same week, all the time.

If he needs a 7+ day recovery from every match, he's not going to be a regular for Chelsea.

2017 Feb. (Van Aanholt) Palace 1 - 0 Middlesboro
2018 Jan. (Sako) Palace 1 - 0 Burnley
2019 May (Batshuayi, Batshuayi, OG, Van Aanholt, Townsend) Palace 5 - 3 Bournemouth
2020 Feb. (Van Aanholt) Palace 1 - 0 Newcastle

I wouldn't say he was knackered all game, just flagging a bit by the end. Given his style, that's not a surprise.

That doesn't mean he needs 7 days of recovery, but it could mean that he over exerted himself in 1 of those games.

Either way, they bigger the club the more resources. So he could have been given the last 20 mins of the Southampton game off. With us, we have nobody even close to his level so he has to play every minute.

(side note, I'm surprised that in both games Eze wasn't given a spin to give CG a break)

These top finely tuned pro athletes have access to top diets, the best coaches, medical advice and exercise regimes. Training grounds have ice baths, state of the art equipment, indoor facilities, saunas and some even have sleep pods!
Club squads are now bigger but most managers choose to play the same players most of the time (smaller clubs by choice).

Compared with Sat or Sun League soccer this is now light years ahead in comparison! However these guys are the cream and are very well paid for what they do.
'Television' now calls the tune, dictates when and how often they perform and 'television pays the money'
Everything else is secondary (except fans of course who pretty much come last these days)!!!
Perhaps it's the simulation and rolling around that makes them all so tired in between games?

I remember being battered and bruised after football each week for 2 days at least in most places (not all through combat as sometimes it was just the appalling state of some of the pitches).

Sometimes your knees had just recovered before they got another beating the very next week, or you incurred another dead leg on the same side, another knee in the back and so on!

Also there was none of this poncey simulation in those days and rolling around all the time partly due to the fact that on some grounds you wanted to spend as little time on the ground as possible due to the distinct possibility of hoovering up dog sh*t!

As for the rigours of a premier league player-
With the amount of time wasting that is now permitted within the game the overall amount of personal effort these players put into a game is diminishing.

I would much rather see a football match played over 2 halves of 30 minutes of the ball actually in play (clock stopped whenever the ball is not in play).

That would make games last a lot longer, be much better value and make them more of a spectacle for fans.

Would you be prepared to share this in this thread ? I'm not going to join in the Zaha slag fest but he certainly seems to have lost the desire to drive with the ball or try to beat a player. Is it simply that, at twenty nine, he's on the way down and has lost the critical half a yard ?

We'd already lost when he got his marching orders today IMO.