Quote Originally Posted by warwickshire View Post
Higher intensity and higher energy are the new buzz words for players who need to get fit. It is an indictment of Crewe Alex FC that the two fittest players are also the oldest, both of whom avoided our academy. Youth players arriving at the door of the first team arrive with tanks half full. Who was the overlord of the academy for the last couple of years - Mr Artell. Well David, you reap what you sow. Lots of hard work to go, but is there enough time? Hoping for an upturn in results in February after intense training. A close defeat at Doncaster.
Artell was Academy Operations Manager, very much concerned with the economics of it, and in no way responsible for the coaching, or any 'coaching manual' that may or may not exist.

I don't think 'fitness' = 'intensity'. No-one's said the players aren't fit; the new management team are looking for them to apply a particular way of playing for 90 minutes. They might not be used to it, but it doesn't mean they're not fit enough to achieve it.

I watched the under 23s this week, and last week. Their coach, Alex Morris, is still in post, but it's clear to me, that he has been asked to demand a different kind of performance, with that intensity we're hearing about. The second half, last week against Bolton, was pretty good; this week, against Birmingham, they actually played some superb football - I thought - throughout. You could see a collective spirit amongst the group, with no moaning or arm-waving at colleagues' misplaced passes (not that there were many). It was gratifying to hear Alex Morris - later, on Player - praise the performance as 'outstanding'; he's a bit of a hard taskmaster, so it was good to have my impression vindicated in a way. There are some talented boys in that group, and I doubt that they'll be allowed to arrive in the first team with 'tanks half full'.

Doncaster will obviously be hard to beat - they're a pretty confident outfit, and although Crewe beat them earlier in the season, I thought they were best opponents we've seen here.