Is our problem with the physical attributes of the players?

[cam69r 8]

Watching last night made me realise that are players are not only behind europes top teams in quality but also in physical ability. Now i wouldn't say fitness is lacking as we can be a hard working team but i mean sheer strength and pace.

We get away with it in the SPL as the other teams are poorer than us so we don't really notice but in the big games we seem so off the pace. We don't really have any fast players in our team anymore. Novo and Bougherra maybe but even against CL defenders they don't look that fast.

Portsmouth won an FA Cup and got to the UEFA Cup on a transfer policy of..."Big black bulldozers" only. They had Kranjcar as their flair player and Defoe and Crouch upfront but if you look at the rest of the team Redknapp played they were all machines. Glen Johson, Sylvin Dystin, Papa Boupa Diop, Sulley Muntari, Noel Paramot, John Utaka etc.

Redknapp realised that by having atheletes all over the pitch would make a huge difference to the team. Kevin Thomson is known as our tenacious tackling midfielder but last night he couldn't get near the ball.

We are cash strapped right now but if the chance to have a Rangers team like an Afican Nations Select who can run the 100m in 11 seconds and bench press a cow then i don't think it would be a bad step at all.

Would be interested to see what you make of this? Just throwing the idea out there that we seem to be lacking strength and pace in key areas.

[Carsons Dog 9,878]

I commented on this last night - the upper body strength of the Stuttgart players was much superior to ours.

They seemed to have strength AND pace - something we are sadly lacking.

[Tommy WATP 86]

Totally agree , obviously not enough work is being put in i.e fitness wise

[WATPRFCNo1 0]

Edu is our only real 'athletic' player, he's looked after himself well and I cant wait for him to get back.