I don’t think it’s a problem only with youngsters (although it may affect them more significantly than older players in terms of their physical and technical development), or only at United.

Many players are playing too many games, because the calendars are packed with too many fixtures and the pressure on managers/head coaches to deliver every week is now relentless.

I agree, it seems FIFA/UEFA/FA just want more games for more money and don't really care for the welfare of players.

Youngsters should be played less as their bodies are still developing I guess and more prone to burnout at a later age.

I understand the point, but a lot of the players in the twitter table have kept going until they were well into their 30s.

I do think players are playing too much but I'd be interested to know how much in comparison to players back when teams didn't have large squads built to rotate.

I guess the problem with United in recent years is that even with a bloated squad, players like Bruno and Rashford were still not being rested or rotated when they should have been.

We need to thank Chelsea again for leaving Salah on the bench for nearly 2 seasons.

I don't think Trents numbers will be that high. He rarely plays in the cups and England never pick him so its benefitting us.

Rashford on the other hand looks burnt out. Ole more or less killed him when he kept playing him injured. How did that get approved? Very poor from the club.

IOAG

That's true, I guess today's footballers benefit from far better diets and science so are able to play for longer but maybe without caring about the long terms effects?

The game is faster nowadays than it was back in the day when players would play nearly every game. We must also remember some people are just better equipped to play often more than others.

There are only 3 on the list that I would say peaked early. Owen being the obvious and Hazard somewhat. Rooney didn't last as long as he could have, but I think that was down to him rather than being overplayed. Throughout his career he drank, smoked and ate takeaways. Had he looked after himself he would have probably had a bit longer at the top.

The restrictions on squads and finances doesnt help this either imo. Unless you're Chelsea or City, your better young players have to play almost all the time because your squad players simply aren't good enough.

Far too many games each season. Managers live and die by results. So they usually play their best players regularly.

Club owners and Chairmen actually want more games, too.

I don't really understand what's happened to Hazard at Real? He was still great at Chelsea up until leaving but the second he moved he seems to have so many more injury problems and a weight issue (which I guess always lingered even at Chelsea). Did Chelsea know he was finished?

'82

Yeah, though I think any comparison with the 'old days' is futile. More broadly, sports science would also include pitches, balls, boots, travel conditions ... but conversely the pace of the game was much, much slower. Take someone like Di Stefano, for example. A quick look says he played for 22 seasons and 700 games, but the vast majority of those would've been with no substitutes allowed. That's also an insane number.

But I think the bodies of pretty much all high-end professional sportspeople take an absolute beating nowadays too. I knew an American pro basketball player not that long ago who played in the Spanish league. He retired in his early 30s, because he said he wanted to have kids and still be able to play with them, but that most pro basketball players' knees are totally destroyed by the time they retire.

Similarly, I remember an interview with an elite (and quite tiny) Spanish marathon runner who said that people always asked how much weight he'd lose by the end of a marathon, but that the most shocking thing for him was that he'd be 3cm shorter, because of the pummelling to all backbone and leg joints took.

I think the single biggest advantage for the real elite footballers nowadays is the money in the sport, which means that with just a little bit of foresight, they are already made for the rest of their lives even if they do have to retire at 30. That certainly wasn't the case in the olden days.

Whilst I agree with the notion that overplaying youngsters is bad for them long term I think there is more to it.

The main thing for me is the hindering of their development.

This is about coaching and a settled club.

comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 36 minutes ago
I understand the point, but a lot of the players in the twitter table have kept going until they were well into their 30s.
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Most of them have played less minutes. If you compare the top 10 or so to the rest, you can see there does seem to be a correlation

Just noticed, Lukaku isn't on that list, and I think he'd already made his début in Belgium when he was 15, so I'd imagine he'd played a sheetload by the time he was 24.

Raúl is another, though in his case he did slow down a lot pretty early on in his career, having broken into the first team at 17. I just checked back, and he had six 50+ seasons by the time he was 24.

comment by #TopLad || Sir Alex Ferguson ||✓ (U10161)
posted 5 minutes ago
comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 36 minutes ago
I understand the point, but a lot of the players in the twitter table have kept going until they were well into their 30s.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of them have played less minutes. If you compare the top 10 or so to the rest, you can see there does seem to be a correlation
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I get the point, and I'm mainly playing devil's advocate here, but I do think there's some things to bear in mind.

Firstly, almost all of the players in the top 10 are still active, and we don;'t know how long they'll go on for. There's always been players who've shown great early promise, only to fall away. There's players we've barely even heard of who've won best player at U17 World Cups. There will always be late bloomers too, and then there's also the category of players who have just 3 or 4 really spectacular seasons that can happen at any point in their careers.

Secondly, we don't know how cherry-picked the figures are. Where would people like Seedorf or Maldini feature on the list?

Thirdly, why would it be detrimental for a player to have his peak years between the ages of, let's say, 19-25 instead of 25-31? If anything, you could say that a player who peaks early can then milk his reputation for as long as he wants to drag his career out. The late bloomer might have 6 or 8 years behind him where the others have made a killing.

comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 44 minutes ago
I don't really understand what's happened to Hazard at Real? He was still great at Chelsea up until leaving but the second he moved he seems to have so many more injury problems and a weight issue (which I guess always lingered even at Chelsea). Did Chelsea know he was finished?
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They got rid at the right time. A bit like Liverpool with Torres and Arsenal with Alexis.

Sergio Ramos another. 350 games, 5-6 seasons playing 50+ games by the time he was 24, kept going strong well into his 30s. Before anyone says he's looking crocked now he's in his mid-30s, so do many other footballers who haven't played anywhere near as much when they were young.

Mbappé, another glaring omission. Hasn't turned 24 yet, already 19,000+ minutes at club level and 23,000+ minutes if we're counting club and country.

There are a lot of factors I feel. The lifestyle of the player is important, their attitude and mental resilience is incredibly important and the natural ability for their body to absorb the rigours of professional sport.

Personally I don't think Owen playing less as a youngster would have added longevity to his career, he would just be remembered differently. In the same way that playing fewer minutes as a young player didn't help Sturridge. Their bodies couldn't cope with the demands placed upon them.

Most managers will try to manage the time young players spend on the pitch, to manage the increase in profile and pressure of expectation as much as the physical aspects. And that seems entirely sensible in most cases.

But there will always be players in the game who come equipped, mentally and physically, to handle the game from a very young age. Ronaldo is an excellent example but there are plenty of others who played a huge amount and have had fantastic and lengthy careers.

Process

But at least with those 2 you could see they were declining before their move. Far less so with Hazard.

Eden Hazard is a strange one. Never did I think Thorgen would be the best Hazard in his family

Most done by the time they're 30 unless they are a fitness freak. I'd hazard a guess Pato and Torres would be similar and it's something I've said for a while.

There are stars around minutes played by the age of 21 and players like Ox, Fowler, Torres, Pato, etc all played about 100 games by that point. There's too much football.

Stats not stars*

Sorry, TopLad, does that bloke give any source for the number of minutes on his list? I think he's just used total minutes as they appear on transfermarkt, because that's the exact tally I get if I add up Dinho's minutes according to that site. The problem is that from his time in Brazil it only counts 10 appearances in the 1998 Libertadores, when by the time he cam to Europe he'd already made a further 115 appearances on top of those 10 (plus a significant number for Brazil's senior and Olympic teams. Even at a conservative estimate of 50 minutes per game, that would still well over 5,000 minutes missing from his total.

This isn't to further state my case, because Dinho if anything was one of those who bottomed out rather early, but in addition to the omissions in the list I mentioned earlier, you'd also have to ask how these figures have been tallied.