There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of our players are lacking energy. We are constantly losing the midfield because we have too many plodders in that area. The Sun on Sunday printed a damning chart showing that we are 19th in the milage covered this season. No surprise Liverpool were top. We need to employ someone to improve their energy levels.

I firmly believe our fitness levels are not as good as they were under Pulis and is a key reason why we used to over-perform and now under-perform.

Players cannot play well when they are nackered.

Having less miles covered isn't necessarily a bad thing, HOWEVER; we are set up in the way that indicates that is they way we like to play. We are not the Pulis/Dougie team that likes to have less possession and simply hit teams on the break. We're trying to play a more possession based system but there is an incredible lack of movement and intensity in our game. The fitness issues have seemed to become more and more apparent the longer Pardew has been in charge. For a patch of the season we looked like a decent pressing team, but that system is so reliant on McArthur and Puncheon, the rest of the squad seems incredibly unfit.

They are most likely the exception rather than the rule though. I just want us to win. I would prefer us winning playing decent attractive football, but if we have to tough it out I'll take it so long as we win.

Yeah i was wondering that too.

Maybe true, anyone who can find what our distance covered stats from 14/15 in particular would give us some indication, also where Leicester ranked last year.

But at the moment we're averaging 51.6% possession each game, that's the 8th highest in the league, highish yes but it's not around the 55-60% where the opposition would naturally be needing to do substantially greater amount of chasing down.

Perhaps both our high-ish possession stats and low distance covered numbers are mainly due to us conceding the first goal so often?

Edited by Mad4palace (09 Nov 2016 5.48pm)