28 Apr 2018 19:35:51
Ed01 if your around mate in your opinion what can or should Klopp do in preparation for these early kick offs to get better performances and results out of them.

Appreciate the difficulty of the past two games due to the champs league but we have been consistently poor in the early kick offs this season.

{Ed001's Note - I think in reality there is little he can do other than change the time of the training to get the players used to it, but that is impossible to do when you only have one training session between it and the previous match. The club could do more to create an atmosphere before games, as the atmosphere makes a huge difference. That would make a real difference if the fans were built up to a crescendo of noise before the game with the right songs and entertainment.}

1.) 28 Apr 2018
28 Apr 2018 19:52:08
Spot on, Ed. Seems like a lost cause as it is now BUT surely, there is something we can do cos this lack of punch during early KO's is becoming a problem.

2.) 28 Apr 2018
28 Apr 2018 19:55:24
Ed01. What time do the squad actually train during the week or does it change? I was always under the impression they trained in the mornings.

{Ed001's Note - it does change but usually mornings, sometimes twice a day so in the afternoons as well. They have only trained once this week though, as they needed two days recovery after the Roma game.}

3.) 28 Apr 2018
28 Apr 2018 19:56:17
We seem to have had quite a lot of them his season . cheers for the reply Ed have a good one mate.

{Ed001's Note - to be honest, it is not just us. I have noticed when I edit other sites that the fans all hate the early kick offs as they feel the team is never at it. So it is a common issue. With the songs we have, there should be no need for the atmosphere to be dull before kick off like it is. They should f off the pop music before a game and put on our songs to get the crowd singing along in the build up, ending with YNWA. Get them hyped with mixes of short bursts of commentary from great games etc. I have been to a few early kick offs and early round FA Cup games and you get no real build up to the game. It is a non-event. That should be changed. Each game should be an event.}

4.) 28 Apr 2018
28 Apr 2018 20:07:15
Cheers for the reply Ed 👍.

{Ed001's Note - welcome mate.}

5.) 28 Apr 2018
28 Apr 2018 20:25:44
You make great points there ed regarding the atmosphere, completely agree.

6.) 28 Apr 2018
28 Apr 2018 20:52:43
we have played 8 early kick offs,
we have won only one,
thats not good enough,
we have only had one penalty in the Kop end .

7.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 02:52:58
It makes sense the early game completely changes the players routine. Sleeping, eating, warm up. Always dull games. The crowd didn't wake up until about the 70th min today either.

8.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 00:16:21
Ed you'd have thought with the American owners they'd be up for the pre game entertainment razzmatazz.

{Ed001's Note - the problem is that a lot of owers have tried the American style stuff and it just doesn't work here. I think they have just all given up.}

9.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 08:40:30
I would not mind those suggestions, Ed.

10.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 09:01:00
For elite sportsmen different kick off times should not effect them. These guys are in the prime of their lives. Their bodies do not all of a sudden not work as well between the hours of 12 and 2. They train in the mornings from 10 so if anything a evening kick off would have more effect. Sportsmen and women travel to different continents and compete in different time zones and still peak in their performance. If we have only won 1 of 8 early kick offs it's because we didn't play well enough to get the win. It has nothing to do with where the big and small hand on a clock are.

{Ed001's Note - they do not peak, that is simply not true. To peak you need to be adjusted to the time zone etc and they will try and get their body adjusted. Time makes a very significant difference. Multiple studies over the years have proven that to be the case.}

11.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 09:37:26
I'd have to agree to disagree with you there to a certain extent Ed01 mate. I agree that they have to adjust to the time zone but they do peak when it's different continents. Tennis players are a good example they play back to back tournaments all over the world. I would love to pick your brains and have an actual discussion with you over this Ed as I'm in the fitness industry and your opinion and knowledge fascinates me. What I meant with my original point though was that it shouldn't matter to the players whether they kick off at 1230, 1500, 1730 or 1945 they are still in the same country let alone continent.

{Ed001's Note - tennis players put in hours of practice a day and tennis matches last for hours at a time as well. It is not just one 90 minute peak for a tennis player, they often have peaks and troughs within one match. I do understand what you are saying but it is totally different. Football players are trying to just hit a peak for 90 minutes only and very rarely can any of them manage it in the early kick offs, this has been an ongoing long term issue since the sport began (at least according to news reports I have read while doing research on articles). In tennis the crowds are not expected to get involved during play, which is why I was saying I think the main thing to do is get the crowd more hyped and involved, as I think the atmosphere is the key thing. That, imo, is why so many athletes produce their best performances in Olympics, as the atmosphere is something they do not experience in a normal athletics meet.

However, it defo does make a difference competing at different times if you are not able to get the body prepared. That is why, for example, bodybuilders are advised to vary their training times, as the body gets itself so prepared and ready for the regular time it can 'shock' the body into bigger muscle gains simply by training at a completely different time from the usual. Anyone who has tried it though will tell you that it can feel really difficult to get yourself mentally as focused for a different time schedule.

I think you are right in that physically it makes little difference, but the mental side of any sport, at the elite level, is the major difference between being first or second.}

12.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 10:57:25
Great comment back that Ed. And like I said I'd love a sit down chat with you over a number of topics to pick your brain. Every days a school day.

{Ed001's Note - you were making me think though, it is good to have someone to point out things that you don't consider otherwise. One of the things that held back football in the past was the lack of consideration of anything outside of the game itself. They were in their own world, not taking notice of the dietary improvements and training changes etc in other sports. I grew up being a huge fan of Bruce Lee and his philosophy was to try and learn from anything and everything, even if it seemed totally unrelated, there was probably something in it you could take to improve whatever you specialise in.

He had an extensive library and was a voracious reader. He would look at other sports and how he could take advancements in them to improve his performance in martial arts. He did always say most of it was mental though, no matter how good the technique, how big or strong or fast, it was the mind that really mattered. I think he has a great point, especially while I am recalling all the thousands of studies I have read over the years in various sports. It does seem to be all about being able to focus on the moment at hand and that is what training at the right time does.

Normally the players sit down to eat their lunch at the 12:30pm time of kick off. So mentally they are thinking of relaxing and eating, rather than playing football. They are probably more in need of lift than ever, as their body will be naturally exuding the relaxants it expects to need after training to heal any damage done. It needs some way for the mind to wake up and combat those effects. An evening kick off, the fans tend to be ready for and buzzing, so it wouldn't matter that it corresponds with a time the body is expecting to relax and eat or relax after eating. The buzz coming from the mind would create an adrenalin spike boosting performance. The lunchtime kick-offs are played in a subdued atmosphere, which is not going to create an adrenalin boost to counteract the levels of natural relaxants being produced and so the urgency is difficult to produce.

I would love to have that chat with you sometime, you make me think, which makes a nice change from most of the people I know!}

13.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 11:51:23
Another cracking post Ed and you are 100% correct. The mind will break far sooner than the body. The human body has the ability and is capable of achieving great things but it takes strong will power and mindset. As I said I somewhat work in the Industry (won't bore you with too much detail) and one of the main things we do is look to put people out of their comfort zones. It's amazing what results we see. The fitter stronger people tend to react far worse than the middle of the range ones. As long as the body is rested, hydrated and fuelled properly then it has the potential to perform. Everything outside of that is either out of their hands ie weather, officials etc or is mental which is huge. I could chat about this all day with you Ed and I take it as a great compliment that you share a similar view.

{Ed001's Note - you wouldn't bore me by going into detail, I will happily spend hours reading scientific studies if there is a chance of learning something. However I can't speak for the rest of the people on the sites! I remember I used to take magazines like New Scientist in to read at work and everyone else used to be reading FHM. Well they were really just looking at the pictures I guess, not sure all of them could actually read.}

14.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 11:55:48
Train the mind and the body will follow. That's a great sentence Ed.

{Ed001's Note - it is, too many people concentrate solely on one or the other when balance is needed, like in pretty much every part of life.}

15.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 12:51:43
Well as you ask Ed 😉, I'm a physical training instructor in one of the armed forces so I'm a bit of a jack of all trades master of none. The profession deals with countless things be it from Strength and Conditioning, cardio vascular fitness, nutrition, injuries, numerous day exercises where the body/ mind is put under duress, climatic fitness, adventure training and sports etc. The fitness industry is fascinating but it is one of the biggest for contradition and change.

{Ed001's Note - I personally believe specialisation leads to stagnation. So what you are doing is keeping yourself open to all new ideas and seeing the effects of them under high stress conditions. There is so much to learn and a lot of the time the info is false that we are fed. One thing I have learnt is that who paid for a study to be done influences the conclusions drawn massively, so I never bother to read them any more.}

16.) 29 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 16:11:45
Totally agree eds for every course I do there's always the bits where I think that' doesn't sound right or it condradicts something else I've been taught. For me my greatest knowledge has come from exposure and experience.

{Ed001's Note - I remember being taught low fat foods are better for athletes, but when I looked into it all the studies that said that were paid for by companies who just happened to make their money out of producing low fat food ranges! Only one independent study had been done then, that I could find, it was in South Africa on endurance athletes and it found that they needed more fat to improve endurance and lower injuries.}

17.) 30 Apr 2018
29 Apr 2018 19:40:34
Haha that's brilliant. Like you said earlier the studies are not worth the paper they are written on. It's all to favour the big manufactures and they will only release te stats that play to their advantage. I love how a lot of the big companies are now putting the word protein in front of the stuff they are selling. It's still got all the same crap in it, it's just got a little bit more protein.

{Ed001's Note - and protein is of no use to 99% of the population anyway. Like anything, it becomes toxic to the body when you have too much of it! It is worrying that people will respond to their nonsense.}