Swansea City’s winning performance at Liverpool on Saturday – their first ever at Anfield – proved just how much the team’s fitness is improving under new head coach Paul Clement.
The team’s fitness has come into question many times this season and the previous season, as they’ve often struggled to cope in second halves of games in particular.
That’s not been the main issue this year though, conceding early goals due to poor defensive work has been the problem, but earlier in the campaign – under Francesco Guidolin – his high pressing style was too demanding for the squad’s lack of fitness, meaning they were vulnerable after the hour mark.
This proved itself in particular against the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City at home, pressing with energy in the first half to maintain clean sheets by half time, but being pinned back after the break as they couldn’t continue their pressing game.
Last week, Paul Clement made it clear that in order for the team to play his way, fitness needed to improve, and he explained that he needed to get the balance right in training to ensure the players were in the right condition going into games.
“It would be easy for me to take a cheap shot at previous regimes and training methods.
“But I`m clear about the way I want to train these players and the way I want them to play – and in order to play the way I want them to play, they`re going to have to get fitter. That`s what I want, not what`s happened before.
“We are pushing hard in training, but we have to be careful not to press too hard because we`ll break players, injure them and then they arrive at games where they are fatigued.
“It`s a fine balance where we`re trying to get it right – but I do believe this team would improve from having greater intensity and stamina over a 90-minute game.”
“You’ve got to try and get them to arrive at the game in the best physical condition without tiring them, without breaking them, because ultimately you don’t want to leave the legs on the training ground, you want them to ready for them to use on the game.
Ahead of facing the fittest team in the League – the team that have covered the most distance so far in the Premier League this season – Liverpool – questions were asked about the fitness of his squad – the same questions were raised when Bob Bradley replaced Francesco Guidolin back in October.
However, the Swans passed the fitness test with flying colours, and covered more ground than any other team over the weekend – 75 miles in total. Jack Cork was Swansea’s top player in the 3-2 win – distance-wise, covering 8.1 miles, with Tom Carroll just behind with 8.0 miles. Liverpool’s Adam Lallana was the overall highest with 8.3 miles.
After the victory, which moves us out of the bottom three, Paul Clement showed his delight in his team’s ’90-minute performance’, something we’ve not seen this season.
New signing Martin Olsson also spoke about the intensity of the training under Clement, saying that he could barely walk for two days after his first session with the Swans:
‘When I heard Swansea were interested I knew there was quality here and I felt they had the right manager.
‘The gaffer has come in and the way we train with the intensity is so tough. I couldn’t walk for two days after my first session, it was really hard.
‘I thought it would be a calmer introduction than I had but it was good and you could see the effect that had here with the intensity in the way we played, the amount of running we did.
‘I hadn’t been playing for two weeks and had a bit of cramp, but the manager gives us a big chance to stay up I think Swansea is the right club for me.’
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