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Alan Pardew Uses One Of The Worst Excuses In Football

10 years ago
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There are a lorry load of reasons why someone might be tired; hard day at work, a mother looking after her child all day and even a boring day at school.

However, there is one place where it seems the word tired is used more than anywhere else, that is the world of Football.

Last season Alan Pardew became quite an expert on the topic of tiredness, this was because Newcastle United were now often playing a mind-boggling two games a week in the Europa league.

No one can deny Newcastle had bad luck in terms of injures last season, this can be in part down to the extra games, and being unlucky. What is not often said though, is that when a team is winning injures are usually at a minimum, when the team is losing injures are suddenly sky high. Injures that were nothing major before, become serious overnight.

Many players would never be dishonest about injures and are always prepared to do their job for the team, even when results aren’t going well.

Other players however, like some of the players that were ‘injured’ for periods last season, and I’m not going pick out any names, we all know the players that were/are in the team with that type of attribute.

The idea that a professional footballer who earns a fortune can’t play twice a week is a disgrace, what is even more disgraceful is the nerve of the manager coming out at the end of the match like Alan Pardew has often done and say “We was tired.” It is disrespectful to every hardworking football supporter who works all week and pays their hard earned money to watch their team play.

God help them if they ever played a rugby match, they’d all be off on a stretcher within two minutes, never to be seen again on a pitch for a least a year and a half.

It is maybe understandable for older players such as Coloccini and even Shola Ameobi, their legs simple can’t run around a pitch like they used to. Actually let me correct that, Shola simply can’t jog around the pitch like he used to.

For the younger players in their early and mid twenties, playing twice a week should be a walk in the park. Yes injures will always happen such as a hamstring can always be pulled or bad tackles can result in broken bones – but this is all different to being tired? Tiredness can lead to injures but this is where a manager and his staff must do their job by looking after them in training.

Being tired is nothing but one of the worst excuse in football for managers who are losing.

The word tired is one of the most overrated and overused words in Football.

I point to Liverpool in their glory days, clubs back then were only allowed one substitute sitting on the bench, the same eleven played almost every match, this in an age where you would assume players are a lot less fitter than the players of today.

Sir Alex Ferguson was the master of keeping his players fresh, but he didn’t completely change the starting eleven between weekend and midweek games, he may have changed a few players just to make sure they didn’t get injured.

So how did these players cope with playing twice a week?! Well they expect to play twice a week and they’d be disappointed not to play twice a week. It’s true these clubs have bigger squads so if they pick up injures they can replace with similar quality. None the less a professional footballer should be expected to play twice a week with ease.

Football…it’s a strange sport, while footballers run round a pitch chasing a ball, a doctor will be saving somebody’s life, yet who do we listen to when one says they’re tired?

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