Will Rafa win the league with Liverpool?

[Red_Polo]

May be they rotated more wisely than Rafa is mate or may be they had better squads and so their rotations had less impact on the quality of the team?

I don't think there is anything wrong with rotating, in fact it is imperative if you expect to have a succesful campaign. But either Rafa needs to be a bit smarter with which games he rotates the team and the personnel he rotates or we need to bring in better quality options in certain positions.

Personally I think we have depth to be able to rotate effectively and win PL games, but perhaps not the quality yet to rotate and have both a succesful PL and European campaign. In which case it would need Rafa to firmly make the league his number one priority if we are to win it this season.

I still think we can win it this season, but it will take a change of approach and mentality from Rafa.

Well, I agree much of your post mate, and I can accept our (and Rafa's) shortcomings some of which you alluded to.

Thing is, Rashid isn't saying Rafa should make slight alterations to who he rotates and when, he's saying he should 'ditch' rotation altogether which is just bollocks.

RP, I'd be interested in seeing those stats. The thing is, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that both United and Chelsea seldom rotated their group of core players from premiership games and both teams still remained in the hunt for major honours up to the last kick of the season.

How many times do you reckon Mourinho rotated Cech, Terry/Carvalho, Lampard and Drogba in prem games? very few.

Same goes for United. Van Der Sar,Ferdinand/Vidic, Carrick, Ronaldo, Rooney.

I'll vote for yes but only if Rafa stops over rotating and keeps a core group of players playing the majority of premiership games. He must also make the premiership our priority if he's to bring back no 19.

Can't remember where they came from now, but found this in a quick google search and I think Tomkins did some similar research recently.

http://www.thefootballreview.co.uk/articles/article.aspx?id=23

Probably one of the biggest myths blown away by our research last year was that Rafa Benitez was not in fact the runaway winner in the ‘rotation’ stakes as other sources love to report (Table 1.1). The actual truth of the matter was that Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafa Benitez made the exact same number of changes to their starting line-ups throughout last season. In fact, when entering the final game of the season Sir Alex was ahead by five changes. Benitez, in deciding to rest players before their Champions League Final, made nine changes to his starting line-up for the final game of the season, whereas Ferguson made only four.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that Rafa never makes team selection errors or that the way he rotates is perfect. I thought he chose an unnecessarily weak team against Pompey. I just think the obsession with blaming poor results on the policy of rotation is incredibly lazy. Everyone asks why Torres doesn't play, nobody asks why Gerrard is playing ****, or why we have a collection decent wide players but none good enough that you feel they should be playign every game as people feel with Torres, do we have too many prosaic strikers who for all their admirable talents do lack that goal-hunger driven killer instinct. Are we just lacking a coherent attacking pattern as a team? Maybe it's just a bad patch of form and we're on our way to number 19?

None of these issues are really more than touched upon here. Instead people rant on about rotation as though it is the one defining factor. Birmigham at home is a game where we should be able to win when we rest one top player. If people want to focus on the omission of Torres for the first 60 mins then they are losing sight of the real issues in my mind.

[Rashid]

He has to do oen thing for me or I want him gone.

1. Challenge for the league right up until Easter.

These would be nice but if he does number 1 noone will care.

2. Drop Rotation
3. Buy some genuine creative players so we can play half decent football.

[Rashid]

I am not saying ditch rotation, I am saying for him to drop his own brand of obsessive rotation. E.g. he loves rotating the strikers but any idiot can see that the likes of Eto'o, Henry, Drogba, Nistellroy play whenever they are fully fit - and guess what? Their teams win league titles.

[Nic83]

Well?

Did this on TLW and the majority said Yes if he changes some things, many said No. I think he can but only if he ditches rotation.

I think he would win it THIS season if he played his best 11 week in week out.

Chelsea in turmoil and UTD over performed last year IMO. Arsenal may prove to be our biggest challengers but I think they will fall away. If we stick to our best, i feel we will pull away.

[Diego]

i think the there could be someone out there that could bring us the title out there faster than rafa, but rafa is not focusing on bringing one title to lfc, he is capable of producing a truly dominant side like fergie did with the mancs, i think in a couple of years we will have a side that we expect to win the league every year, i trust him more than anyone out there to build us the squad that is capable of dominance, look at our squad now, who are our weakest players now, crouch, sissoko, riise, yossi. thats pretty good players concidering most concider them our weekest links. compared to the rubbish rafa had when he took over, imagine, with money when we replace those players with top quaility, i have imense faith in rafa in the long haul. i wasn't expecting us to win this season anyways, although i hoped we would and i still hope we do, and i think we still can, but what i expect us to do is to be close to the top, close second would be acceptable, cause we are so close to having a truly dominant side...

[friedk]

Well?

Did this on TLW and the majority said Yes if he changes some things, many said No. I think he can but only if he ditches rotation.

I've got a question, why do you only post after a bad result?

[Dhav]

Great post mate

Well, I agree much of your post mate, and I can accept our (and Rafa's) shortcomings some of which you alluded to.

Thing is, Rashid isn't saying Rafa should make slight alterations to who he rotates and when, he's saying he should 'ditch' rotation altogether which is just bollocks.

No doubt. Ditching rotation as such, is not an option, and anyone who thinks so is clearly off their rocker. Perhaps Rashid would like to clarify his comments as surely he is not implying that Rafa should play the same XI every game (injuries and suspensions permitting)?

[Dhav]

i think the there could be someone out there that could bring us the title out there faster than rafa, but rafa is not focusing on bringing one title to lfc, he is capable of producing a truly dominant side like fergie did with the mancs, i think in a couple of years we will have a side that we expect to win the league every year, i trust him more than anyone out there to build us the squad that is capable of dominance, look at our squad now, who are our weakest players now, crouch, sissoko, riise, yossi. thats pretty good players concidering most concider them our weekest links. compared to the rubbish rafa had when he took over, imagine, with money when we replace those players with top quaility, i have imense faith in rafa in the long haul. i wasn't expecting us to win this season anyways, although i hoped we would and i still hope we do, and i think we still can, but what i expect us to do is to be close to the top, close second would be acceptable, cause we are so close to having a truly dominant side...

Certainly it is possible that he's building a team than can dominate, but that would require probably a turnover of players, bringing in greater quality. Time and patience, and Rafa is probably running out of both.

[Rashid]

Rafa should choose his most important competition and play his best players every game in it (barring injuries and suspensions), and rotate around the other competitions.

[Dhav]

Rafa should choose his most important competition and play his best players every game in it (barring injuries and suspensions), and rotate around the other competitions.

But it seems he's already done that, and the competition is the CL. And I'd think everyone of us would prefer it to be the Premier League.

I thought we had enough quality to rest the likes of Gerrard and Torres and still win league games, but I'm beginning to think that is not the case.

[Sarb]

I thought the whole problem was because he changes things too much?

[Diego]

I thought the whole problem was because he changes things too much?

yesterday had nothing to do with changing things to much, imo...

lack of motivation was the major factor, players didn't show up, players werent willing to fight for the red shirt, gerrard wasn't even trying, same with allot of players...

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

RP, I'd be interested in seeing those stats. The thing is, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that both United and Chelsea seldom rotated their group of core players from premiership games and both teams still remained in the hunt for major honours up to the last kick of the season.

How many times do you reckon Mourinho rotated Cech, Terry/Carvalho, Lampard and Drogba in prem games? very few.

Same goes for United. Van Der Sar,Ferdinand/Vidic, Carrick, Ronaldo, Rooney.

I'll vote for yes but only if Rafa stops over rotating and keeps a core group of players playing the majority of premiership games. He must also make the premiership our priority if he's to bring back no 19.

[Sarb]

Chelsea don't rotate their core players. Rafa does and we **** up. Rafa is to blamefor that no one else

[Guest]

Rotation is not the problem, it's the squad's quality in depth which is. In an ideal world, Rafa would have 22 players of equal calibre. He's won 2 La Liga titles FFS, and he's been rotating his Valencia squad as much as he's doing to ours.