Liverpool FC Forum

bigmick wrote:It seems I'm picking up some flack for apparent inconsistency, which is fair enough. I suppose having banged on about over rotation (correctly) for years it's only natural that the moment I advocate some "resting" I'm going to cop a bit.

I like to be fair (believe it or not) in a football forum, and if in the past I told Bigmick a couple of things about how he addresses some topics in the forum (I know he didn't like it), I have to be fair this time and defend him.

I laughed at the quote of LFC2007 because it was familiar. But don't call him inconsistent, because anyone that followed the rotation thread, which had pages and pages, must know that he said that about rotation, but how many times did he say aswell that he didn't advocate for playing the same players always? He made that disclaimer no less than 24 times I'd say.

Plus, if anything, it's a sign of him softening his position on rotation, he might now seen the light of moderation rotation being necessary. 

s@int wrote:

GRAHAM01 wrote:i have a bloke that works with me and he has just been telling me a little about there team

he said they beat man scum 1-0 at home a few years back ( not sure in what comp ) also he said they have 2 old bayern munich strikers playing for them, getting old now but still

i will add he did say that they were not very good though so bonus 4-0 would do or more just for the fun

As far as I am aware the mancs beat them 3-0 both home and away mate

DEBRECEN coach Andras Herczeg insists his club have improved since the last time they faced Champions League opposition in England when they were overpowered by Manchester United.

That was in a third qualifying round match and they lost both legs 3-0, suffering at the hands of Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo.

[url=http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/09/16/debrecen-coach-andras-herczeg-believes-his-side-are-getting-stronger-ahead-of-liverpool-ma

tch-92534-24700588/]Daily post [/url]

sorry mate i should have checked but just put down what he told me 

his wife comes from there and he goes there all the time so i thought he would be right in what he was saying

numb nuts i will have to kick as* now 

bigmick wrote:The last reason I can think of as of now that I'd certainly leave Torres outat the very least is this. He isn't going to stay fit all season, he isn't going to be able to play in every league match. At some point during the season, we are going to need to come up with an alternative. Hopefully it won't be for long otherwise we'll be very quickly also rans, but for a few matches at least we are going to need to find a solution. Doesn't it make sense in a game which we can afford to lose, to have a look at some alternative? My alternative would be to play Babel up top, with Benayoun off him. I'd play this against the Hungarian team, and I'd tell Torres to have a few days off.

It's an interesting thought, this.  I'm certainly no Babelian but I think this kind of idea might serve the common good.  It'll give Torres both a rest and a slight kick up the backside (focus on the league matches, lad, and find your top gear).  It'll allow all those who say that Babel never has the chance to play in his preferred position another occasion to conveniently forget about when we next discuss how he doesn't seem up to it (sorry, couldn't resist ).  But, most importantly, it will offer "Rio" one more (last?) opportunity to demonstrate he has something to offer the side.  Or, if that's not motivation enough for him, he can consider it a chance to put himself back into the shop window.  Play Babel, tell him that a good performance will earn him further chances in cup competitions while a bad performance will see him wearing his civvies until the next window and see what we get.  As Mick says, we've got to face up to the fact that we may be without Torres at times throughout the season so we should be rehearsing some potential replacements.  Let's start with Babel and if he's not up to it, we can move on to the Voronator...

bigmick wrote:It seems I'm picking up some flack for apparent inconsistency, which is fair enough. I suppose having banged on about over rotation (correctly) for years it's only natural that the moment I advocate some "resting" I'm going to cop a bit.

Just to clarify though and argue my point, all circumstances are different to each other and despite accusations to the contrary, I've never ever said we ought to play the same team in every single game (that was what the blanket throwers used to say in order to try and dampen down discussion as I remember).

Lets have a little look at the situation, and while we're at it compare it with the Birmingham situation.

Firstly, as of now we only have one viable striker. Not two, three, or four, but one. Who's fault that is if anyones is for other threads, but I think pretty much everyone would agree that if Torres gets seriously injured we are absolutely fecked. This is a different situation to the previous periods when we were rotating ourselves into dizziness, and probably to some extent explains why we don't do it anymore. So if we accept that keeping Torres fit and fresh is absolutely vital, then surely we can accept that the point of view at least that we don't play him in games where it isn't entirely necessary is not off the wall.

Now to come back briefly to Johns point about the manager being damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, I don't think that's fair to be honest. I never said he SHOULD have rested Torres against Burnley, Torres had to play simply because we haven't got anybody else. My point is/was that in an ideal world, given the fact that our star striker looks dead on his feet, we would have been able to at least consider resting him, as it was we couldn't/can't.

Equally, while I think we have proven categorically over the previous few seasons that it really does make sense to get some momentum up before you start chopping and changing (particularly if it involves replacing first choice players with others who are fairly obviously inferior), two mitigating factors apply as of now. Firstly, we kind of have a bit of momentum in that we've just strung a couple of wins together. We're not exactly flying, but at least we have got something going after a pretty average start. Secondly, if ever there was a game in which you can concieveably afford to feck up it's the first Champions League match. We'll still qualify out of the group regardless of the result in this match, and as I said earlier the Premiership game on Saturday is much more important. 

The last reason I can think of as of now that I'd certainly leave Torres outat the very least is this. He isn't going to stay fit all season, he isn't going to be able to play in every league match. At some point during the season, we are going to need to come up with an alternative. Hopefully it won't be for long otherwise we'll be very quickly also rans, but for a few matches at least we are going to need to find a solution. Doesn't it make sense in a game which we can afford to lose, to have a look at some alternative? My alternative would be to play Babel up top, with Benayoun off him. I'd play this against the Hungarian team, and I'd tell Torres to have a few days off.

Just to say it again, our situation in the league is extremely serious. Lose at West Ham and Chelsea and we are absolutely gone for all money, THAT should be our focus, not the game tonight.

bigmick wrote:Yep, fair one straight back at you John. To be honest it's hard to really comment on because other than Crouch for a time, we've never really had a viable alternative to Torres at the club. Even Keane, all 20 million quid of him never really shot the lights out I think it's fair to say, so had he still been at the club and torres been rested in his favour it would have made many nervous, me included. My point was really that we ought to be looking to at the very least develop a realistic option should Torres be injured or need a rest, at the moment we quite literally have nobody except Kuyt in my estimation.

Without wishing to get bogged down in five pages about Kuyt, I'll take the diplomatic route and say we could do with him staying on the right because he's good there. So in summary, even if we did have an alternative to Torres I'm still not sure I'd have rested him against Burnley you're right there. It would be nice though to at least be able to consider it. I'd definately leave him out against this mob though, and I've a sneaking feeling Rafa will as well.