Relentless season isn’t over for Royals just yet
THIS season a lot has been made of player workloads. With games compressed into a shorter season, no meaningful pre-season and no crowds to drive players on as they flag, getting through games at peak tempo has challenged players.
It is unrelenting. Take George Puscas, who for much of this season has been either injured or out of favour at Reading.
In the space of 20 days he played most of the game at Nottingham Forest, came on as a sub at Birmingham, and then did the same at Reading against QPR. Then he jetted off to play for Romania against North Macedonia, Germany and Armenia.
He will get back to Reading just in time to travel up to Barnsley to play on Good Friday. That is a mad 20 days of travelling and playing.
Reading manager Veljko Paunovic will be wanting his squad to be fresh, recharged and fully energised for the game at Oakwell.
Win it and Reading will be favourites to finish in the top six. Lose it and with seven games remaining they will be on course to miss out.
Puscas’ preparation is not ideal, while captain Liam Moore has been away on international duty with Jamaica and Alfa Semedo has been with GuineaBissau.
For the rest of the first team it has been a more relaxing fortnight at the
Bearwood training ground. International travels will come into the manager’s selection reckoning this Easter. The team also plays Derby County at the Madejski Stadium on Easter Monday.
How far players run during games, and workload, has been on my mind this week.
In truth it has been ever since I found out Stephen Hunt ran 14 kilometres in a single 90 minutes in the Premier League back in 2006.
According to Catapult Sports, which provides the tracking devices top players wear around Europe, elite midfielders clock up an average 11.2 kilometres a game at an average speed of 8.45mph.
Attackers average 9.6km, but have a higher average speed of 9.2mph. Defenders do a more lengthy 10.5km, but at a more leisurely 8.15 mph. Football is both endurance and explosive. Basketball and tennis are more explosive still.
The average distance covered in an
NBA match by a player is 2.5 miles. At Wimbledon a player in a men’s singles match can expect to cover three miles. I could never put my finger on why baseball did not appeal to me. An incredibly lazy 0.0375 miles per game might be the answer.
Before you write a letter, good all-rounders on the cricket field can easily do five miles per day.
All this makes the achievements of
Luke Owens from Elstree School in Woolhampton more astonishing.
Over the last week he completed seven marathons in seven days, raising more than £13,000 for the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust.
Luke is head of English, so I am aware he will have covered this article in red ink and crossings out by now, but to knock out that mileage in a week makes the travails of Barnsley away this Friday seem tame.