Liverpool FC Forum

[bigmick]

Watching the game today and the utterly disjointed performance, I couldn't help but cast my mind back to the first couple of months of last season when seemingly endless rotations of personel was one of the reasons for wild fluctuations in our levels of performance.

At the time many of us on here were pleading with Rafa, play your best team FFS and lets forget about rotating until we string a few results together and get the momentum rolling. Eventually, around the time of the Home game with West Ham Rafa seemed to concurr and consistency of selection was followed by consistency of results and performance. We climbed up the table, stopped conceding goals from set-pieces and everything seemed good again.

To be perfectly honest, the roots for todays display were actually sown IMHO in the lethargic and uninspiring Home display against Macabi Haifa. Failure to get a significant upper hand in that game never mind put the tie to bed meant that we had to hold some players back for Tuesday in the game today and ultimately paid the penalty.

I have always thought that the opening five minutes of any football match are crucial, not in that the most important goals are scored in that period but in that the declarations of intent are lodged here, the tempo set and the gauntlet thrown down. It seems that in the early part of last season and sofar in this (with the exception of the charity shield) we aren't getting out of the blocks early doors.

Ultimately, it is my contention that Warnock can tell his players as much as he likes to "believe in themselves" and to "fear nobody" etc etc, but deep inside their hearts the Sheffield Utd players would expect to lose to Liverpool. A fast start from the men in yellow would merely confirm this and you would end up with a situation where they would settle for a 2-0 defeat as being "not too bad" under the circumstances. If on the other hand it takes you twenty minutes to have a shot, half an hour to rouse yourself out of your slumber and the concession of the opening goal to fire you up then you run the risk of what happened to us today. Thank God for the referee because of course it wasn't a penalty and it could have been a whole lot worse.

In conclusion I hope we begin to pick at the very least the nucleus of our strongest team available so we can get the ball rolling. In all honesty part of me wishes that maybe Rafa could be a tad more gracious in situations like today, perhaps even accept that we were a tad fortunate with the award of the penalty kick. Having said that, maybe I'm just being a little old fashioned.

[*_Ruthless_*]

Rotation could work in some cases ... But like today Rafa uses Rotation to an Extreme he doesn't just leave one player out to rest no he leaves about 4 out!

Give players a rest but make sure u dont give them a rest all at the same time!

[woof woof !]

maybe I'm just being a little old fashioned.

Well that makes two of us Mick.

I'm old school and go with the "one game at a time" and always field your best eleven "school of thought".

i can't for one minute believe that Rafa was playing one game at a time today or indeed fielding his best 11 .

I know that nowadays the number of games played in a season makes huge demands on players and a valid arguement can be made for resting players for certain games , however the opening day of the season is not one of them. the opening day is when you showwhat you've got and scare the sh'ite out of everybody else . Unfortunately , today we did neither .

[48-1119859832]

Rotation on a small scale is acceptable and it works, more often than not. It's when you start taking out several key players (for whatever reason) and you put in your "fringe" players in the starting line up that the balance could be disjointed, therefore leading to a bad performance. Rafa's been good thus far with his rotation, there haven't been too many games where his rotation has cost us.

However with a large squad, rotation seems like it will be used more often than not, this could harm the consistency of our performances, this was also one of Houllier's problems, he would always chop and change constantly, didn't get the right balance and it effected results.

I don't think this will be the case with Rafa, although he was very niave today, fielding what is basically a second string side against Sheff Utd. I hope he has taken note and will keep rotation to a minimal level.

[taff]

Ok another good post by bigmick and something to think about but who else would you have chosen considering Finnan and Alonso werent fit

[Ciggy]

Rafa said today when asked will he still rotate the team this season, his anwer was yes unless one of our 4 strikers are on form.
And if they are he will not drop them.

[woof woof !]

Ok another good post by bigmick and something to think about but who else would you have chosen considering Finnan and Alonso werent fit

Guess in finnans absence we were stuck with Kronkamp at RB , which on todays performance is a bit worrying . As for a replacement    for Alonso , I've heard that Steven Gerrard can play quite well at CM and there's a rumour we signed a fella called Pennant who given the opportunity can play a decent game at RM .

Wake up Taff .   

[RichardLFC1]

Most people have and idea of our " best eleven " and if we played with our best 11 week in week out then not many teams could even hold an torch to us. Resting players is necessary if there feeling tired but the season is one day old and we rested a few key players.

[Ciggy]

Most people have and idea of our " best eleven " and if we played with our best 11 week in week out then not many teams could even hold an torch to us. Resting players is necessary if there feeling tired but the season is one day old and we rested a few key players.

edit

[mighty mo]

Most people have and idea of our " best eleven " and if we played with our best 11 week in week out then not many teams could even hold an torch to us. Resting players is necessary if there feeling tired but the season is one day old and we rested a few key players.

Im very concerned that a Liverpool fan has Gabby Heize's in his siG all be it for argentina on his profile.
Sort yer head out lad.

that is paletta ,not gabrielle heinz in the picture

[L-type]

Most people have and idea of our " best eleven " and if we played with our best 11 week in week out then not many teams could even hold an torch to us. Resting players is necessary if there feeling tired but the season is one day old and we rested a few key players.

Im very concerned that a Liverpool fan has Gabby Heize's in his siG all be it for argentina on his profile.
Sort yer head out lad.

that is paletta ,not gabrielle heinz in the picture

       

Buck up people, yes we played like sh.it today.  There's no dodging that, but the players know that level of play isnt good enough and now I'd expect that with the character of our team, we can strike back and humiliate Maccabi Haifa.  Heads up!!

[spion]

If Carra & Riise hadn't gone off we would have won that game. The loss of Finnan was so damaging to the shape of the team & Kronkamp is S**TE at keeping the ball, passing the ball & playing football(which didn't help). The midfield looked at sea at times & Momo's last two man of the man performances will be forgotten after that showing. Mo's right by the way that is Paletta not that manc tool...

[Kev Huyton 2006]

Thats the thing with Benitez, he does change it too much.

MIght confuse a few players, and you might not get good form playing that way, chopping and chaging.

How many times did you see great Arsenal Sides of the past few years play Henry in another position, drop Pires, or play Ljunberg Centre Midifeld?

Wenger never changed it very much.

[ALONSO]

I agree that you should play your best 11 if fit. If we want a team playing with consistency and fluency then the same group of players need to be playing together on a regular basis. I was not pleased to see Gerrard stuck out on the right again when Alonso wasn't playing. Also I think that we are so used to hoofing the ball up to Crouch that we have lost the ability to break teams down with passing and moving.
Gerrard, Bellamy and Pennant have good attack minded footballing brains and if playing together regularly could form a really exciting combination.
I am a bit concerned that Hyppia is sloppy in possesion and our replacement defenders are not that tall aswell.

[The_Rock]

Most people have and idea of our " best eleven " and if we played with our best 11 week in week out then not many teams could even hold an torch to us. Resting players is necessary if there feeling tired but the season is one day old and we rested a few key players.

Im very concerned that a Liverpool fan has Gabby Heize's in his siG all be it for argentina on his profile.
Sort yer head out lad.

that is paletta ,not gabrielle heinz in the picture

       

Buck up people, yes we played like sh.it today.  There's no dodging that, but the players know that level of play isnt good enough and now I'd expect that with the character of our team, we can strike back and humiliate Maccabi Haifa.  Heads up!!

Wats the world coming to ? L-TYPE is more optimistic than half the forum members