Counterpressing is a fitness bet the table eventually collects on

Pressing hard from the first whistle wins matches in autumn and asks a question in March that most squads answer badly.

A heavy pressing side in September is a wonderful thing to watch. Everything happens in the opponent's half, mistakes get punished within seconds, and the scoreline looks like dominance because it is.

The bill arrives later, and it arrives in a specific and predictable shape.

The mechanism is not mysterious. Repeated maximal sprints with short recovery is the most demanding way a footballer can be asked to work, and a counterpressing system does not distribute those sprints evenly. It concentrates them in the players nearest each ball loss, usually the front three and the more advanced midfielder, and it concentrates them in the moments immediately after possession is lost, which is exactly when those players have just finished attacking. Sprint, lose it, sprint again. Nobody is fresh for the second one.

Over a season that accumulates in the same handful of bodies, and the two visible symptoms are soft tissue injuries in the forward line and a press that still looks like a press but arrives half a second late. The second symptom is worse and much harder to diagnose from the stands, because a late press has the shape of the real thing and none of its effect. Players commit forward, the trap does not close, and the team is now stretched with its best defenders isolated.

Which is why I would judge a pressing side by its February rather than its October. Anyone can press when the legs are new.

The clubs that make it work do two unglamorous things. They rotate the pressing positions specifically and aggressively, accepting a weaker forward line for a fresher one. And they build in matches where the press is deliberately switched off, sitting in a mid block against opponents where the risk-reward does not justify the running. That second one requires a manager willing to look passive on television, which is rarer than it should be.

The version I distrust is ideological pressing, applied at the same intensity regardless of opponent, scoreline or fixture density, defended on the grounds that it is who we are.

Identity is a fine thing for a club to have. It is a terrible reason to sprint at a back four that is happy to pass around you while your striker's hamstring reaches the end of its patience.