by Red Soul » Thu Sep 14, 2006 9:05 pm
I think it's a huge mistake to bemoan the rotation policy as the cause for our current indifferent form, and I have no doubt that people will be praising it towards the end of the season when we can put 11 fresh men on the field against 11 battle-weary, exhausted 40-game veterans.
What Rafa has done is nothing short of awesome. He's assembled a team that doesn't consist of a starting 11 and several lower quality backups, but 22 players who are each good enough to contend for their position. I believe that the big picture is to get this squad to be able to play as a cohesive, well-drilled unit no matter who is in those positions, a machine that loses none of it's efficiency or end product regardless of which particular parts are fitted. The team must be used to Pennant playing on the right as they are with Gerrard. They must be used to having Agger sitting in the centre of defence as they are with Sami. Obviously, this is going to take some time, but I reckon it'll happen sooner rather than later.
There is also the fact that we have had an influx of new players. While Pennant and Bellamy should bed in fairly quickly, having had experience in the Premiership, they are having to familiarise themselves with a completely different team to the ones they played for. Our other acquisitions will take slightly longer, but they are obviously quality players and I'm confident they will also adjust to the Premiership. But it's going to take more than three or four games into the season before we see the benefits they will undoubtedly bring.
We should also take into account that this season has arrived on the back of a World Cup, and since we are such a good side with a huge amount of talented players, we had lots of representation out there. This meant that Rafa didn't have a great deal of pre-season training time with many of them, and some of them will obviously be feeling the effects of having played such a number of matches close together. The rotation policy will cater for that, and allow players to regain full fitness without a discernible drop in quality of our team.
We've also had injuries, more than a few spots of bad luck, and crammed fixture lists to contend with.
In short, stop moaning about the rotation policy that's going to win us the Premiership at some point during the next few years. Instead, revel in the fact that we've got 20+ players who, to a man, are good enough to wear that red shirt.