LIVERPOOL F$%kED UP, SO USE THEIR LESSON

I'm no soccer fan but back in 2016, Liverpool had a huge run of injuries that destroyed their season.

The former coach of the Wales national team, Raymond Verheijen, heavily criticised the team fitness staff at the time and here's what went down:

- Liverpool destroyed their players by training too much, too soon using 2 and 3-a-days (2 or 3 sessions in a single day!) during pre-season

- This debacle ended up with 3 different phases that the Liverpool players ended up going through being the fatigue phase, the injury phase and the injury crisis phase

- In phase 1 (fatigue), the accumulation of fatigue was too much too soon and without enough recovery all while players were relatively unfit players after just coming back their off-season period

- As players get tired they train to play slower and with less skill (PUT THAT ONE IN YOUR BACKGROUND MEMORY AS MY 7YR OLD CALLS IT)

- After being over-trained in the first 2 weeks, the tired players then played some friendly's which means an even higher risk of injury from higher arousal, and thus higher levels of output on an already compromised system.

- In phase 2 (injury), over-trained players lost freshness in the first few weeks an are now playing friendly's with less body coordination where accumulated fatigue results in slower central nervous system signals/efficiency resulting in even less body control yet the players were required to make explosive actions so more injures occurred in weeks 3 and 4 of the pre-season.

- After the spate if injuries in weeks 3 and 4, the coaches continue on and this developed into an injury crisis in weeks 5 and 6 where even more injuries occurred for those who managed to avoid them earlier.

- Phase 3 (injury crisis), turned into hell for whatever players were left as now training numbers are down and thus training rate of perceived exertion (rpe) rises dramatically from short rest and higher volume per player resulting in even more fatigue.

- This also resulted in more game minutes and even more fatigue per player

I've heard some rumors on what the Adelaide Crows went rolling with, training hamstrings quite hard and heavy 2 days out from a game and look at their injury list right now.

I'm not sure what some of the AFL team's fitness staff try and o with their players but I would have thought having as many of your best 22 on the field for the most total minutes would result in an automatic finals birth.

Keeping 6 of your best 12 on the park would guarantee top 6 and 9 of your best 12 a top 4 finish at year's end and at that point, you've out yourself in a great position and with a bit of luck in September, take it all on GF day.