Wenger & Rotation

[Johnny]

It all goes back to the same thing - Rafa is cautious by nature. He doesnt take risks, he doesnt 'go for it'...and he hasnt won the title.

Fergie took 8 yrs to win the title!!!!!!

[Craig_H]

Fergie took 8 yrs to win the title!!!!!!

I sympathize with Rafa, that football is different now. But it is. Rightly or wrongly, managers wont get anything like 8 years now.

I said when Rafa was appointed, that he should get 6 years, as long as we're still qualifying for the CL each year. And i'll stand by that.

[Johnny]

I sympathize with Rafa, that football is different now. But it is. Rightly or wrongly, managers wont get anything like 8 years now.

I said when Rafa was appointed, that he should get 6 years, as long as we're still qualifying for the CL each year. And i'll stand by that.

Same here,as long as Rafa wins enough to keep the Club in the Black the yanks will be happy,I hope.It`s all down to finance these days.CL qualification is vital every yr and i can really see us winning the P{L in the next few yrs.But one disastrous season and the owners will be looking for a new manager.

[fred_plasticine]

Same here,as long as Rafa wins enough to keep the Club in the Black the yanks will be happy,I hope.It`s all down to finance these days.CL qualification is vital every yr and i can really see us winning the P{L in the next few yrs.But one disastrous season and the owners will be looking for a new manager.

i think a lot depends on whether we're actually progressing each season. last season was a step backwards in the league compared to the season before. we should have bettered our previous result and didn't, that is disappointing.
of course a manger should be given time in the job as long as he has a clear vision and an outlined plan for the long term future of the club. if you look at the work rafa's doing with the reserves and academy you can see we're in safe hands here.

[Maestro]

Bump

[Pacman]

We've got good players.

The difference is, their's are usually on the pitch, as opposed to the bench.

You're making out like he drops them for every game here Syd. Stevie and Torres are USUALLY on the pitch it just so happens that one time this season they were both on the bench we drew.

[dww]

Seeing as Maestro has given this a bump I was thinking about the rotation for Pompey. I wonder whether Rafa doesn't use a much more sophisticated notion of which games to rotate in than is generally noted. My theory is that he would look at the expected number of points gained and how much this would be altered by playing or otherwise his top players. The results gained by top teams indicate that Pompey away is a game where big teams struggle to win irrelevant of what team they put out - thus the expected points tally (as bourne out by ourselves and Uniteds recent results there) is 1 point. The change in the likelyhood of getting a win by playing any different team is small and we can easily put out a number of teams capable of containing them and thus maximising the likelyhood of getting the one point. Whereas some games such as the top four sides home and away and less defensively sound teams like Manchester City say we would have a much better chance of getting more points if we played Torres etc.

[fred_plasticine]

Seeing as Maestro has given this a bump I was thinking about the rotation for Pompey. I wonder whether Rafa doesn't use a much more sophisticated notion of which games to rotate in than is generally noted. My theory is that he would look at the expected number of points gained and how much this would be altered by playing or otherwise his top players. The results gained by top teams indicate that Pompey away is a game where big teams struggle to win irrelevant of what team they put out - thus the expected points tally (as bourne out by ourselves and Uniteds recent results there) is 1 point. The change in the likelyhood of getting a win by playing any different team is small and we can easily put out a number of teams capable of containing them and thus maximising the likelyhood of getting the one point. Whereas some games such as the top four sides home and away and less defensively sound teams like Manchester City say we would have a much better chance of getting more points if we played Torres etc.

which basically means that he doesn't expect more than a point from some games in the first place ...
maybe he simply thought that torres - due to being new in the league - would physically struggle in a place like pompey...

[dww]

which basically means that he doesn't expect more than a point from some games in the first place ...
maybe he simply thought that torres - due to being new in the league - would physically struggle in a place like pompey...

Obviously there are a lot of possibilities for individual rotations.

The point is slightly (very slightly) more subtle that you suggest as:
The judgement is about the amount of change to the probability of getting Xpts playing a different team would make. Therefore it is not simple a matter of looking at the quality of the opposition but the style which they play etc. (which you allude to in your post). Which contrasts with DJSs point of view that if a game is against a good team we should always play our first choice XI.

Which in a way ends up being similar to Speedy's point about picking an appropriate team.

[kopash]

we can't afford to to rest Torres given how poor the other strikers are. That is the sad fact.

[Maestro]

we can't afford to torate Torres given how poor the other strikers are. That is the sad fact.

Sounds painful.

[Guest]

Sounds painful.

Flmao

[Craig_H]

You're making out like he drops them for every game here Syd. Stevie and Torres are USUALLY on the pitch it just so happens that one time this season they were both on the bench we drew.

Doesnt that tell you something?

[fred_plasticine]

Doesnt that tell you something?

so far we've drawn more games with both of them on the pitch...

[Pacman]

Doesnt that tell you something?

You're making out he does it every week though.

And NO IT DOESN'T it's not inconceivable that even with Torres and Gerrard on the park we still could of drew or even lost the game.