The battle for fourth.........

[dww]

It's not simply about rotating in itself, as i've said before, it's about intelligent rotating - rotating the right players in the right matches. Rafa's ability to do this properly hasnt looked water-tight this season.

Furthermore, the amount of changes from one game to the next is crucial. 2-3 changes between games is normal. 4, 5 or even 6 (which rafa has been guilty of previously) opens up enormous potential for disruption to team fluidity.

I'm not sure if he has rotated 4+ that much - it would be interesting to see a match by match breakdown.

I think though that we have seen more changes than maybe Rafa would have ideally liked at times as he has been searching for a balanced formation/tactic. The fact we have used the same basic game plan against a string of average PL teams and also Inter in the CL to me is a sign that Rafa has solved at least some of those questions to his own satisfaction.

I think that whether or not we can use it successfully in the league will be dependent long term on who we can bring in. We need another pacy wide player to play a similar role to Babel and someone capable of playing the central role Gerrard does (I've been thinking and suspect that with pace either side we could put Crouch up front and basically use the same team shape).

[Craig_H]

I cant list you the games, but there's been a couple or few occasions this season where i've heard the commentator state that Rafa's made 6 changes to his team. I honestly even think i remember one where it was 8. That level of rotation is absurd.

As for sticking with a more settled side, i honestly fear that come next season, when it's four competitions again, the insane levels of rotation in the league will be returning.

[Parm]

We can get higher than 4th

quite possibly so, especially depending upon how Arsenal cope over the next few weeks,

[michelmas]

I'd give it a value of maybe 2 or 3 points. Nothing that significant. I suppose if everything's all tight, you could argue the significance of 3 points, mind.

There was a run of 3 games (all draws) not too long after the initial injury to Agger, where Sami was well rusty and either directly of indirectly cost us 6 of those 9 points on offer. This is obviously conjecture, but if Agger had played in those games and not, like an out-of-sorts Sami, have been caught out of position so that he had to give away a free kick that leads to a goal, or the odd own goal as a result of bad positioning, or the profligacy in front of opposing teams goals at setpieces then we may well have kept the momentum that saw us score 20 goals in 5 games.

Pots&Pans I know but I would give it a much higher value than 2 or 3.

[Craig_H]

It's hard to quantify. I dont think it'd be the difference between winning the title or not though.

[mersey86]

I cant list you the games, but there's been a couple or few occasions this season where i've heard the commentator state that Rafa's made 6 changes to his team. I honestly even think i remember one where it was 8. That level of rotation is absurd.

As for sticking with a more settled side, i honestly fear that come next season, when it's four competitions again, the insane levels of rotation in the league will be returning.

I think of this as the ideal. Don't rotate the goalkeeper, but play the #2 in league cup, possibly Champions League if we are unassailable, maybe even FA Cup. Don't rotate central defence (except as above). Play Stevie and Torres as much as possible, but substitute them whenever we are three ahead (or 2 with 15 minutes left). Masher is close to being in that bracket too. I think the keeper and central defence are capable of playing a higher number of games without burning out. You want to then get as much as possible out of your star players.
As for the rest, the wide players are not our current strength, nor is the second striker. These will be much more subject to rotation ... but if the players know they will be rotated there is less incentive to "make the position their own" and some can get sloppy. This is where the manager (and hopefully his assistant, yes Rafa you do need one) earns his salt. Can he keep the players happy, focused and performing close to their best while also ensuring they get sufficient rest?
Going into next season, hopefully with a high-quality wide man added and some decent cover for Stevie (if that's possible) Rafa will face these problems again. I think he's got us closer to the answer ... time will tell.