Liverpool FC Forum

[redtrader74]

Now i've heard it all, a manager largely regarded as detached is now rotating to keep players happy...no chance

[maguskwt]

one factor which could have improved our form compared to last season, whether or not rotation is involved, might be rafa's better knowledge of how english teams play now. Rafa now knows that lower table clubs will park a bus in front of their goal and try as hard as they can to get a draw (a bit exaggerated but the essence is true)...they would play physical...sliding tackles everywhere... body checks galore...
and they would also play long balls...


in this case going for their throat is alot more efficient than being overly tactical... which i think rafa has at last now realised judging by how attacking we were in our away games... he knows that we have to impose ourselves rather than react to them in our away games... players such as babel and torres and (new and improved) pennant and benayoun can help us do that...

so yeah i'm neither pro-rotationalist or anti-rotationalist both sides have advantages but I admire rafa's philosophy of having a flexible squad so that he can deal different teams differently... only thing is he needs to apply the right tactic...

[besiktas_peace]

i m a besiktas fan. my english is not very well,maybe i can mistake in grammar,sorry for this. first of all,i apologize of you,because some besiktas fans really stupid and you dont consider important this guys. i think the other topic (champions leage) closed and i wanna write in here we are kindly fans,and besiktas fans love liverpool and kop..so if you will come to istanbul you will see beautiful things,and see besiktas fans.besiktas fans are very enthusiastic but not holigans..so i m very happy to play of liverpool and see you,and i think you will be very happy to see me...i again apologize of you,and good luck...

[Sabre]

Now i've heard it all, a manager largely regarded as detached is now rotating to keep players happy...no chance

Remember Bellamy's case, he obviously was used often in rotations to keep him happy, there was the utter need for that, as he was going to be sold in summer 

[Rimetto_]

although i'm not for wholesale changes i do think that with our squad we can make upto 3/4 changes to the team without any disruption.

The problem we had last year with rotation was rafa felt he needed to rotate members of the team but he didn't have squad players for them positions which meant square peg round hole scenario's. Because of this the team shape didn't stay solid and the fluency went from the team.

This year if he wants to rest/rotate a player he has someone to put into that position who actually plays that position and the team see no change in shape or tactics

[66-1112520797]

Now i've heard it all, a manager largely regarded as detached is now rotating to keep players happy...no chance

I think you've missed the boat on that one Redtrader.

Just because he rotates, it doesnt mean his man managment skills are tip top. Yes he may rotate to keep the players happy but that doesnt mean he's the arm around the shoulder type.

[kunilson]

he's not gonna be "pappa bear" to any of the players.....but he doesnt need to be.

he does things in different ways.....and these are grown men most of them who should not need comforting from their boss. how many of you get hugs from your boss?

but i can see if your talking about getting the best out of an individual player, his tactics in doing this are not that bad considering how far stevie, carra and finnan to name a few have raised their game under him.

[66-1112520797]

he's not gonna be "pappa bear" to any of the players.....but he doesnt need to be.

he does things in different ways.....and these are grown men most of them who should not need comforting from their boss. how many of you get hugs from your boss?

Yeah but does your boss drop you for somebody else, and even if you constantly find yourself being rested for no particular reason, other than to let your workmate get the nod. Wouldnt you start asking questions ? Its human nature to an extent, and you'd look to your boss for reasurance that you still feature in his plans.

Peter Crouch would be the perfect example, he scored, played well last season yet this season finds himself down the pecking order, if I were him I'd ask questions. Afterall they only want to play football. When Crouch scored the other night, I couldnt help but think that, that was a big 'up yours' to Rafa. Saying pick me and I'll perform but he knows as much as anyone, that goal and his performance will not guarentee  him a start the next game.

[Rimetto_]

he's not gonna be "pappa bear" to any of the players.....but he doesnt need to be.

he does things in different ways.....and these are grown men most of them who should not need comforting from their boss. how many of you get hugs from your boss?

Yeah but does your boss drop you for somebody else, and even if you constantly find yourself being rested for no particular reason, other than to let your workmate get the nod. Wouldnt you start asking questions ? Its human nature to an extent, and you'd look to your boss for reasurance that you still feature in his plans.

Peter Crouch would be the perfect example, he scored, played well last season yet this season finds himself down the pecking order, if I were him I'd ask questions. Afterall they only want to play football. When Crouch scored the other night, I couldnt help but think that, that was a big 'up yours' to Rafa. Saying pick me and I'll perform but he knows as much as anyone, that goal and his performance will not guarentee  him a start the next game.

i agree with what you said about crouch just doing what anyone of us would do when faced with this situation, but although crouch scored i don't think his overall performance proved he's worthy of a regular start.

He didn't do anything in my eyes that said he's better than the other 3, for me he's now clearly the 4th choice (good 4th choice)

[Redbilly1960]

Great thread this and very interesting. Just my two bobs worth.
Call it rotation or resting players or whatever you like the problem is the modern professional footballer is not the same "animal" it was 15,10 or even 5 years ago.
I am old enough to remeber LFC going 20-25 games with an unchanged 13, yes 13 only two on the bench. Players then would play week after week with a groin strain, a broken toe has the human being recently grown the metatarcyl (spelt wrong I know). I am sure players such as Emlyn Hughes, Tommy Smith, Billy Bremner and Jackie Charlton all had there fair share of fractured metatarcyl's but they got on with it. Players of today are pampered superstars or pampered primodonnas the slightest knock and the insist on a being substituted. I am not suggesting that the likes of Carra and Gerrard are primadonnas because Jamie proved against Sunderland he would need to be seriously injured to go off.But I am sure lots of these foriegn players like to have time off to rest. These players are Multi Million pounds assets to clubs which are big business and I have no doubt that all managers have chairman whispering in there ear about looking after there multi million pound commodities. So resting, rotation or whatever there is lots more taken into account than what a manager wants.

Rafa I believe plays the team that he thinks will beat the team in front of him. I also think we have all the positions on the pitch doubly covered and unlike in rescent seasons when seeing some "waster" warming up to come on filled me with dread, now when the subs are warming up all of them seem to be able to do a job or look like they will soon.
Also on the point of a team gelling together its nice to see the team warming up before a game and using a football unlike the time when Sammy Lee just had them running a round little plastic discs and there main tool of there trade was still in the bag. That is not knocking Sammy Lee one of my all time favourite reds but I guess he just did what his boss (Houlier) told him.
I may have gone slightly off the point but just my two bobs now back to work

[redtrader74]

Now i've heard it all, a manager largely regarded as detached is now rotating to keep players happy...no chance

I think you've missed the boat on that one Redtrader.

Just because he rotates, it doesnt mean his man managment skills are tip top. Yes he may rotate to keep the players happy but that doesnt mean he's the arm around the shoulder type.

From what i have seen of Benitez actions he doesn't care what the players want, all he is seems to want is to win, and have players who have the right attitude and want to be at LFC.

Thats why he played SG on the right, regardless of where SG wanted, thats why he let Owen go, no begging 'please stay'.
Like SG has said he doesn't tell him well done, but rather 'that pass in the 89th minute was poor'. He seems so singleminded that i very much doubt he would play Crouch because he looks unhappy, rather i can hear him saying 'if you could put away those simple headers, you'd play more no?'

[kunilson]

he's not gonna be "pappa bear" to any of the players.....but he doesnt need to be.

he does things in different ways.....and these are grown men most of them who should not need comforting from their boss. how many of you get hugs from your boss?

Yeah but does your boss drop you for somebody else, and even if you constantly find yourself being rested for no particular reason, other than to let your workmate get the nod. Wouldnt you start asking questions ? Its human nature to an extent, and you'd look to your boss for reasurance that you still feature in his plans.

Peter Crouch would be the perfect example, he scored, played well last season yet this season finds himself down the pecking order, if I were him I'd ask questions. Afterall they only want to play football. When Crouch scored the other night, I couldnt help but think that, that was a big 'up yours' to Rafa. Saying pick me and I'll perform but he knows as much as anyone, that goal and his performance will not guarentee  him a start the next game.

to be honest, i actually tipped crouch to be top scorer this year....i thought he'd get much more games, but it hasn't happened so far....

rafa has different ways of showing confidence in his players...if crouch is unhappy with this he only has to look next door and see kuyt, and try and figure out what it is he's doing that keeps him in the team more.

there could be something rafa is trying to get crouch to add to his game, but hasn't happened yet. kuyt could be a better link-up player for rafa's tactics. whatever the reason, there must be something going on in the day-2-day training sessions that we don't see.....ok you can say that what happens on match day only counts, but we're not suffering at the moment. rafa has said to the MEDIA on several occasions that crouch is important in his plans, thats all the recognition he needs. apart from that, he should be working on his game to the point where he is un-droppable.

[Sabre]

Now i've heard it all, a manager largely regarded as detached is now rotating to keep players happy...no chance

I think you've missed the boat on that one Redtrader.

Just because he rotates, it doesnt mean his man managment skills are tip top. Yes he may rotate to keep the players happy but that doesnt mean he's the arm around the shoulder type.

From what i have seen of Benitez actions he doesn't care what the players want, all he is seems to want is to win, and have players who have the right attitude and want to be at LFC.

Thats why he played SG on the right, regardless of where SG wanted, thats why he let Owen go, no begging 'please stay'.
Like SG has said he doesn't tell him well done, but rather 'that pass in the 89th minute was poor'. He seems so singleminded that i very much doubt he would play Crouch because he looks unhappy, rather i can hear him saying 'if you could put away those simple headers, you'd play more no?'

Crouch itself is a proof that Rafa thinks about keeping players happy, he doesn't care. He just seeks what he thinks it will benefit the team, and in that case particularly, I too find a bit harsh that Croch has been out of the squad.

I'm not so sure Crouch being out of the squad means he was unhappy with the performance, but just like redbilly says, he just thought that other men were more appropiate to deal with a team.

Redbilly has also explained how was the football back then. I'm sure many of you are able to list famous Liverpool squads of the past, the eleven guys, you have drilled them in the memory. I think now that's more difficult, as there's not a fixed starting eleven, not only here, but in other great teams like Barcelona aswell. FWIW, they won't play Etoo, Ronaldinho, Messi and Henry often together, in each game, he'll pick 3 of them or so, and one of them will be on the bench. Does that mean he's doing badly? not necessarily, it just means the features of the other players are more appropiate for that game, although a player in bad form MAY be benched more easily.

I think it happens something of the like with our attack men. And Rafa's position about this is clear, I think, "if you like it ok, if you don't, there you have the door".

[lakes10]

it feels strange today, its Transfer deadline day but for once i dont care, most other years i am stuck on the net looking for news to see if we get our man.....for once i think we have them all.

I would not be shocked to see the name Crouch come up today.

[Redbilly1960]

it feels strange today, its Transfer deadline day but for once i dont care, most other years i am stuck on the net looking for news to see if we get our man.....for once i think we have them all.

I would not be shocke to see the name Crouch come up today.

I hope not