Musings of a Liverpool Fan

Is Rafael Benitez's rotation policy still hurting Liverpool?

2008-10-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

The media has always been quick to criticize Rafael Benitez's rotation policy. Every time Benitez made a change to Liverpool's starting eleven they have cried bloody murder. Former players and some Liverpool supporters too have questioned this policy.

Has Rafa actually harmed Liverpool's chances in the Premier League in the past seasons by constantly tinkering with the team? Or are the pundits being unfairly harsh on Benitez?

The main point in favor of rotation — that it keeps players fresh for tough games later in the season — has been countered by the argument that there's no point in players being fresh at the end of the season if there's nothing to play for. Good argument too, seeing that Liverpool had little to play for in the premiership at the end of last season.

Critics of Rafa's rotation policy usually point to the draw against Birmingham at Anfield in September last year. The manager had kept Torres on the bench with an eye on the long season ahead but the plan backfired as Liverpool failed to beat a team that was relegated at the end of the season.

In Rafa's defence I can only point to a couple of results in this season. Liverpool won against United even though both Gerrard and Torres didn't start. The rotation in this case may have been forced by the injuries to the two players, but still Liverpool showed that they could get a result even in the absence of their star players. Now if they could beat United, how could a team like Birmingham be unbeatable in the absence of Torres?

A week after beating United they were held to a draw against newly promoted Stoke City even though both Gerrard and Torres returned to fitness and played. If the presence of Torres could have snatched a victory against Birmingham why didn't they get a result against Stoke? Liverpool should have won both these games even if they had to play eleven backup players and the fact that they didn't is worrying. But you can't put all the blame on rotation for every bad result.

There's one question I've been asking myself about this season — how much rotation is Rafa going to employ this time? I don't think we're going to see as much rotation as we've seen in the past seasons. I'm not saying that he'll use the same 11 players for every match, but we are likely to see a more settled starting eleven this time. Players like Torres, Keane, Riera and Gerrard need to play as many matches together as possible and it looks like that's exactly what Rafa is thinking himself.

This is the team that I would like to see starting regularly in the Premier League matches:

Reina
Arbeloa - Carragher - Agger - Dossena
Kuyt - Gerrard - Mascherano - Riera
Keane - Torres

Rafa used the 4-2-3-1 formation in the later stages of last season and it worked quite well, but now after the arrival of Keane and Riera, the 4-4-2 looks like the better option. Riera can provide the width that Liverpool were lacking so far, and Keane looks like an ideal strike partner for Torres and the best way to utilize both these players fully would be to use 4-4-2. I would have put Skrtel in my ideal team there, but now that he's out with injury for 2-3 months, Agger is the automatic choice. At least, we can be assured that there won't be any rotation at center-back.

The left-back, defensive midfield and the right midfield are the only positions where I'd like to see some rotation. Aurelio, when he's fully fit will compete with Dossena for his place at left-back, and Babel or Benayoun for Kuyt could be another option against some teams. Alonso can be used instead of Mascherano against teams that park a bus in front of goal. Alonso could be more useful than Mascherano when it comes to pushing forward in attack and breaking down the defenses of such teams. Other than that, I don't think there should be too much rotation unless it's because of injuries or (very) poor form.

Rafa Benitez may have been to blame to some extent for rotating excessively and in almost all positions last season. The presence of a more settled starting line-up may have helped turn some of the draws into wins and that's where Liverpool lost out last season. But then, there were several other factors to blame as well for those draws, so saying that rotation was the main reason why Liverpool didn't challenge for the title is unfair.

This season, the signs have been good so far. There hasn't been too much rotation, and Rafa seems to be sticking to a settled line-up. The results have been good and the performances have been improving steadily. So will this be Liverpool's season, finally? Frankly, I don't know and anyway it's too early to tell. But if things don't work out this season, I'm pretty sure nobody will blame rotation for it. And remember, Ferguson himself plans to rotate his team this season. Who knows, we might actually see the media glorify rotation as a brilliant strategy before the end of the season.

What do you think of Rafael Benitez's rotation policy? Is it the reason why Benitez hasn't been able to win the Premier League title so far? Or is it just the media looking for more reasons to criticize Benitez? And do you think rotation policy will gain more acceptance among the media now that Alex Ferguson has started using it?

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Everton 0-2 Liverpool

2008-09-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

Fernando Torres scored twice in quick succession as Liverpool defeated Everton 2-0 at Goodison Park yesterday in a game that the visitors dominated. El Nino could well have gone on to complete his hat-trick, but the referee had already blown the whistle for foul.

Many Liverpool fans — myself included — have been wondering when Robbie Keane will score his first goal for the Reds. Once again he didn't fire in too many shots, but it was good to see him involved in both the goals.

He sent in an excellent cross to Torres in the 59th minute and the latter volleyed the ball straight to the back of the net. Three minutes later Keane sent in a pass into the penalty area to Kuyt but he was tackled by Jagielka and the ball rolled into the path of Torres who had no trouble scoring the second goal.

Soon after that Tim Howard found the ball fly past him into the goal twice more, but both goals were disallowed. The first shot by Dirk Kuyt was rightly denied because the ball had crossed the byline before Riera sent in the cross. Torres' shot that should have been his hat-trick goal was denied by Riley apparently because of Kuyt's foul inside the box, but I don't think that was a foul.

Overall, it was a good performance by Liverpool. They kept the majority of the possessionand created some good chances in the second half. Everton couldn't handle Gerrard and Alonso in the midfield and Riera too continued showing how much of a difference an out-and-out winger could make to the team.

The defence too was solid and Skrtel did a very nice job of keeping Yakubu at bay. With the way Skrtel is playing at the moment, Agger must be wondering how he'll get back into the team. Arbeloa-Carragher-Skrtel-Dossena seems like the ideal back four for Liverpool right now.

Poor refereeing was the only thing that spoiled this game for me. Merseyside derbies have a high incidence of players being sent off. There have been 17 red cards in the last 33 matches between these teams. And Riley with his penchant for booking anyone who breathes too loudly in his presence was the worst choice to officiate this match.

Riley was too enthusiastic about calling fouls and stopped play often enough to frustrate both the teams. Then he wrongly denied Torres his hat-trick. In the 80th minute he sent off Tim Cahill in what I feel was a very harsh decision. The two-footed tackle on Alonso was rash, but I'm not convinced it deserved a direct red card.

(This article was originally published in Musings of a Liverpool Fan. Are you subscribed to Musings of a Liverpool Fan? If not, subscribe.)

Liverpool 2-1 Middlesbrough

2008-08-24T03:14:00.000-07:00

For the first time since Rafa took over, we have won both of our first two Premier League games. Both the games could have ended in a draw (or worse) but somehow we managed to scrape a win on each occasion.

Middlesbrough will be disappointed with yesterday's result. They could easily have won the game, but thanks to Carra and Gerrard's late heroics, we managed to snatch the game away from them. Despite the result, Southgate will be proud of his team after the way they played yesterday. Most teams tend to be a bit defensive when they come to Anfield, but Boro played for all three points and nearly got away with it.

Liverpool's performance was better than in the games against Standard Liege or Sunderland, but it still wasn't enough to give us a comfortable victory that we should have got. Instead, we had to depend on Carragher and Gerrard to come to the rescue very late into the game.

Early in the game, Kuyt had a shot comfortably saved by Ross Turnbull who played instead of Brad Jones who was injured during warm up. Torres and Keane linked up better in this game and managed to create some chances, but nothing that really threatened the Boro 'keeper.

Once again Gerrard, like in the first half of the Sunderland game, failed to dominate the midfield the way he usually does. I suppose we'll have to wait for Masch to be back before Gerrard feels comfortable moving forward.

Benayoun was a big disappointment left of midfield. He was practically invisible throughout the match. For some reason, he and Kuyt switched positions in the first half, and switched back a few minutes later after the move failed to have any impact. Babel replaced him after 65 minutes, and continued where Yossi had left off. He rarely got to see the ball, and when he did, he promptly lost possession.

Mido, who replaced Alves on the 60th minute, immediately troubled the Liverpool defence and sent an accurate cross to Tuncay who nearly scored after flicking the ball over his head to get past Carra. It would have been a great goal had he scored, but he volleyed it straight at Reina who saved it. Mido finally scored for Boro in the 70th minute with a low shot from outside the box.

Carra, who never scores (4 goals in 11 years), finally equalized in the 86th minute when his shot went into the net after a deflection off Pogatetz. Gerrard score the winning goal (and made me fall off the chair in surprise) with seconds to go in stoppage time with one of his trademark shots.

Xabi Alonso didn't have a great game. He was the one who sent in the cross that helped Gerrard score that winner, but he didn't influence play the way he did in that second half against Sunderland. He took the corner kicks and they were mostly terrible and never troubled the Boro defence.

Anyway, we have six points from two games. That's something. And at least we've improved, if only by a little bit. A must win match against Standard Liege at Anfield next. Let's hope for a better performance then.

Sunderland 0-1 Liverpool

2008-08-17T00:03:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly sure about what happened at the Stadium of Light today, but I do have a theory about it. Peter Crouch decided to take his revenge on Liverpool for having left him on the bench for most of last season. He came to Sunderland as an apparition roaming alongside Torres and Keane unseen by any but his former teammates. Haunted by this phantom Crouch, the Liverpool defenders sent long ball after long ball at him to appease him and make him go away. After half an hour spent tormenting the Reds and receiving an endless stream of long balls, this ghost Crouch departed, satisfied with his revenge, to join his new teammates as the prepare for their game against Chelsea tomorrow.

Nothing else explains the way we played for the first half an hour. I believe something similar happened in the match agaist Standard Liege. (I missed the match so I don't know exactly.) What happened to the beautiful passing game that we saw them play in that friendly against Rangers?

Liverpool started with a 4-4-2 formation, but surprisingly it was Hyypia playing alongside Carragher instead of Agger and Plessis in midfield next to Gerrard. I don't know why Dami and Plessis started when Alonso, Agger and Skrtel were all on the bench.

For the first half an hour, the Black Cats looked like the better team, and it often looked like they would score first. The Liverpool defence looked shaky with Hyypia's mistake almost giving Sunderland a goal within 5 minutes. Sunderland had a chance around the 15th minute when Reina had to scramble away Murphy's header.

After that, Liverpool played slightly better and created some chances.The long balls had finally stopped then and there was a semblance of link up between the players.

Plessis didn't have a very good first half and was substituted by Alonso at half time. With Alonso playing alongside him, Gerrard started playing farther up than he was playing in the first half.

In the 73rd minute Keane and Torres got into each others' way to waste an easy chance to score. A few minutes later Alonso tried and nearly succeeded in scoring from his shot from Liverpool's half. It would have been a spectacular goal had he scored from there.

Liverpool finally scored in the 83rd minute, with a Torres goal from about 25 yards out. That's the only way he could have scored seeing how deep Sunderland were defending to counter his runs. He never got to see much of the ball until then, but he made full use of his first real chance when he got it. That's why he is so important to us.

Overall it was a poor match and it took Torres' brilliance to bail us out. Keane's performance wasn't great and the Torres-Keane partnership didn't work out too well either, but it's early days yet. We can only hope he settles down quickly.

Three points. That's the only thing that matters at the moment. It was a poor match, but now there's nothing to do but hope for a much better performance next week at Anfield against Middlesbrough.

Hopefully by then, our defenders would have exorcised the specter of Peter Crouch. No more stupid long balls next time... Please.

Start of a New Season

2008-08-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

We are at the start of a new season now and Liverpool will start their campaign for the 2008/9 season with a game against Sunderland in a few hours. Expecting us to win the League this season may be a bit too much, but there's no doubt that we are in a much better position now than we were last season.

With Keane partnering Torres up front, the attack looks a lot more dangerous. Rafa has also signed two good attacking fullbacks, and Dossena especially looks like he could fit into the team right away like Skrtel did last season. And Agger is back from injury, so the defence looks much better too. The only thing we're missing right now is specialist wingers and will probably have continue with Babel and Kuyt filling in those positions.

Overall, we look good enough to move up to third place this season, ahead of Arsenal. Manchester United and Chelsea have much better squads than us (ouch, it hurts to admit that) and are favourites to take the top two spots. If I had to pick one of them for the title, I'd pick Chelsea. If they could get that close to the title with Grant last season, we can expect them to do even better with Scolari in charge.

Coming to today's match against Sunderland, I'm just hoping for a victory. Sunderland have been improving, and playing them at the Stadium of Light won't be easy. The Standard Liege match showed us how badly we can mess things up even against a team that's not rated very highly. I couldn't watch the match, but by all accounts it was a terrible performance. We'll have to do much better to win today.