' SIMPLY NOT FIT ENOUGH '

Cardiff City are NOT fit enough! Nathan Blake's damning verdict on Bristol City performance.

We'd October 28th

Nathan Blake believes Cardiff City's squad need to get fitter if they want to go up
Cardiff City legend Nathan Blake insists Russell Slade’s squad aren’t fit enough to win Premier League promotion.

After watching the Bluebirds get outplayed by Bristol City in the Monday night’s Severnside derby , the former Wales striker’s damning conclusion identified physical fitness as the big issue.

Blake, who won the Championship title with Bolton in 1997, said: “All the players will hate me for this and I know because I always hated it when people said it to me but... they are not fit enough to win the Championship. It’s as simple as that.”

WalesOnline columnist Blakey says Cardiff’s defensive strategy was undermined by their lack of fitness, which in turn allowed Bristol more time on the ball, as the visitors dominated in terms of possession, duels won and shots on goal.


He said: “Physically they can’t close the ball down at the required tempo so they’re dropping deeper and trying to counter attack.

“But they can’t break out at that required tempo either, so they’ve got a problem.

“In fact, there are two major problems... there isn’t enough pace in the team and for me they’re not fit enough.”

Blake points to Malky Mackay’s Championship title winning class of 2013 for a stand-out example of a team who covered any lack in ability with first class physical fitness.


Tactical Analysis: What is a lop-sided midfield and why did it fail against Bristol?

And even though Russell Slade said a year ago that it was the biggest problem bequeathed to him by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, our man insists they’re still nowhere near the levels they were previously.

He said: “Mackay’s team didn’t have great players left, right and centre but they were fitter than everybody else.

“They had a very good squad of players but there were other teams in the Championship with similar ability or better. That team played at a tempo others couldn’t handle.

“Their fitness levels won them games and ultimately won them promotion.”

While Blake admits the players won’t appreciate being told to pound the streets in order to improve, his advice to them is simple: “If you want to go up, you have to find a way of getting fitter.”

According to Slade, they were unfit a year ago and to be fair I do believe they now train twice as hard under Slade it's just his tactics etc are the problem, not fitness.

According to Slade, they were unfit a year ago and to be fair I do believe they now train twice as hard under Slade it's just his tactics etc are the problem, not fitness.

It appears Simply not good enough

Cardiff City are NOT fit enough! Nathan Blake's damning verdict on Bristol City performance.

We'd October 28th

Nathan Blake believes Cardiff City's squad need to get fitter if they want to go up
Cardiff City legend Nathan Blake insists Russell Slade’s squad aren’t fit enough to win Premier League promotion.

After watching the Bluebirds get outplayed by Bristol City in the Monday night’s Severnside derby , the former Wales striker’s damning conclusion identified physical fitness as the big issue.

Blake, who won the Championship title with Bolton in 1997, said: “All the players will hate me for this and I know because I always hated it when people said it to me but... they are not fit enough to win the Championship. It’s as simple as that.”

WalesOnline columnist Blakey says Cardiff’s defensive strategy was undermined by their lack of fitness, which in turn allowed Bristol more time on the ball, as the visitors dominated in terms of possession, duels won and shots on goal.


He said: “Physically they can’t close the ball down at the required tempo so they’re dropping deeper and trying to counter attack.

“But they can’t break out at that required tempo either, so they’ve got a problem.

“In fact, there are two major problems... there isn’t enough pace in the team and for me they’re not fit enough.”

Blake points to Malky Mackay’s Championship title winning class of 2013 for a stand-out example of a team who covered any lack in ability with first class physical fitness.


Tactical Analysis: What is a lop-sided midfield and why did it fail against Bristol?

And even though Russell Slade said a year ago that it was the biggest problem bequeathed to him by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, our man insists they’re still nowhere near the levels they were previously.

He said: “Mackay’s team didn’t have great players left, right and centre but they were fitter than everybody else.

“They had a very good squad of players but there were other teams in the Championship with similar ability or better. That team played at a tempo others couldn’t handle.

“Their fitness levels won them games and ultimately won them promotion.”

While Blake admits the players won’t appreciate being told to pound the streets in order to improve, his advice to them is simple: “If you want to go up, you have to find a way of getting fitter.”

and that is coming from a right lazy tw*t when he played for us lol - quality though when he was switched on

Blakey has a point. The comparison with Malky's squad is also fair in my opinion. The one thing Malky worked on was fitness and it paid in spades! That year, there were very few players, let alone teams who could keep going in the same way for 90+mins.

To get honest, it is one of the main features of the PL that teams don't tend to tire.

To have any chance of going up and staying up, the resilience and stamina of each player must be tip-top. I'm surprised in a way that Slade hasn't emphasised this more in training.

Bollocks fitness had nothing to do with it it was an off day.

Thank god for that Blake has talked sense two weeks consecutively but now back to talking bollox....

This is not about fitness, but physicality. Whitts, dikgachoi ,noone, mason are physically poor specimens for professional athletes, they are either weak as kittens or snail slow.

On the other hand Revel, Gunnar, Morrison & Peltier are poor footballers.

Its about merging the 2 and it just didn't work on Monday.

According to Slade, they were unfit a year ago and to be fair I do believe they now train twice as hard under Slade it's just his tactics etc are the problem, not fitness.

Lack of pace out wide and up front and lack of skill and creation in midfield. That's what's killing us. 442, 451, 433, 352... all of them would work fine if we had pace and creativity in the team.

Bollocks fitness had nothing to do with it it was an off day.

Can you honestly say hand on heart we have looked really good this season(I can't) , the tactics are all wrong we have a workman like squad that will play for each other but the pace in our side is non existent and that is down to Slades tactics he plays the same tactics regardless who we play he needs to mix it up a bit

Slade needs to go asap

I'm sorry but I don't think that fitness had anything to do with it. Too often we got caught in possession or just passed it away. For long periods we could not string 3 or 4 passes together. Half arsed for most of the game. It was too easy for Bristol to press high and break us up and find Fabio & Peltier out of position. It was only in the last quarter, after Ameobi came on, that we managed to get some sort of clear repeated chances on goal - so IMO they didn't run out of steam. They just weren't up to speed from the start. This always seems to be the case when they run out against teams who have been struggling.

Bollocks fitness had nothing to do with it it was an off day.

Can you honestly say hand on heart we have looked really good this season(I can't) , the tactics are all wrong we have a workman like squad that will play for each other but the pace in our side is non existent and that is down to Slades tactics he plays the same tactics regardless who we play he needs to mix it up a bit

We looked really good against Wolves and Hull.

Bugger all to do with fitness. Hell, we almost stole the game right at the end when we got on top of them - teams with fitness issues don't do that.

He's spouting nonsense again.

Disagree although we aren't the fittest in championship, but I agree we go deep then haven't pace to get up pitch

Fitness is always an easy excuse.

According to Slade, they were unfit a year ago and to be fair I do believe they now train twice as hard under Slade it's just his tactics etc are the problem, not fitness.

I agree I don't think fitness is the problem. Tactics do need to improve but my concern is the total lack of impact upfront and the inability of the forwards to put the ball in the net, or at the very least TRY to put the ball in the net.

I can kind of see where Blake is coming from, because if you compare Malkys championship winning team against the players we currently have, there isn't a massive amount of difference in talent. Although, you could argue that in key areas like a danger up front we are lacking. We had Campbell then, who whilst not prolific, always looked dangerous and kept defenders on the back foot. We have lost that element. Plus Whitts and Gunner were dodgy then and are now 2 years further down the road.