Liverpool FC Forum

by **LittleHobo** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:11 am

we are starved of premiership success and when the players actually look like they understand how much the fans want a proper challenge then i will give them respect

watching vs birmingham, portsmouth and spurs you would think the players didnt care that we aint won the league for so long (gerrard included)

by **Leonmc0708** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:14 am

peewee wrote:i am just watching steve macmahon on tv now talking about it.

many points are being raised, a good point he made about gerrard and the players around him, its not just different players around him when they are rotated, its different types of players with different qualities and gerrard doesnt know from one week to the next who he will be paired with, the same as the forwards. he is of the opinion that the players are having trouble adapting to this.

he also says rotation is just basically a euphemism for being dropped and players are being dropped when they are playing well.

there is also talk that paco is being missed, he was the one who took training and knew which players were fit and which players were on form, and now he isn't there there is nobody advising rafa properly.

McMahon is well known for being a poor summariser and strangely biased against Liverpool recently.

Great player, but not quite an oracle.

by **66-1112520797** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:15 am

Leonmc0708 wrote:
s@int wrote:
Leonmc0708 wrote:So basically the anti rotation crew is saying that the players need a caring arm and a big hug after their poor displays but Rafa needs to be sacked ?

I'm a pro-rotation, happy clapper mate. I just thought a bit of love might work wonders I don't want Rafa sacked either, just think we might need a friendly approachable assistant. Nothing wrong in that is there?

I dont usually label people with such things, so apologies to you and Bamaga and anyone else who felt them selves fenced off with that statement.

It was a generalisation mate.

No problem darling.

I'm fed up with this 'rotation' c.rap TBH I think most

people know my opinion on it.

But just for the record here are my main thoughts about it:

1) I dont think it helps the cohesion of the team, in which the extent of rotation takes place at LFC.

2) I dont think it helps the players themselves, in my mind it can only bring on a negative mentality in a players mind. i.e 'if I score a hat-trick this week, who care's, I'll probably be rested next we, so why worry about my form?'

3) I think with the amount of rotating Rafa tends to do, it only aids our opposition and at the same time and Man U , Chelsea and Arsenal.

4) I honestly do not see the point in players being fresher come March when their already out of (the league) especially by then.

by **LittleHobo** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:19 am

exactly gone are the days of fighting for your place

in rafas regime even if your on terrible form you will play at least 30 games a year

by **Leonmc0708** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:24 am

LittleHobo wrote:exactly gone are the days of fighting for your place

in rafas regime even if your on terrible form you will play at least 30 games a year

How then is someone who is not in form to regain their form mate ?

by **Sabre** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:28 am

Leonmc0708 wrote:
peewee wrote:i am just watching steve macmahon on tv now talking about it.

many points are being raised, a good point he made about gerrard and the players around him, its not just different players around him when they are rotated, its different types of players with different qualities and gerrard doesnt know from one week to the next who he will be paired with, the same as the forwards. he is of the opinion that the players are having trouble adapting to this.

he also says rotation is just basically a euphemism for being dropped and players are being dropped when they are playing well.

there is also talk that paco is being missed, he was the one who took training and knew which players were fit and which players were on form, and now he isn't there there is nobody advising rafa properly.

McMahon is well known for being a poor summariser and strangely biased against Liverpool recently.

Great player, but not quite an oracle.

"Pundits" must love Rotation. THey're paid for giving opinions on football, and when they're asked a complicated question, instead of explaining that he comes from an injury, or saying that he still lacks a couple of games in his pocket this season to be at his best, or analysing what went wrong in the last matches, no, he can blame rotation. It's so easy! and the people believes it. Amazing.

He doesn't explain though how under the same mad regime of rotations and, some say, "out of position" he managed to score 23 goals.

Do not see the matches, do not review the videos, if you are a pundit, blame rotation. The TV will pay you for saying that, and many fans will buy it. (Not implying that all antirotationist buy this cráp nor they have their own opinions, just in case, I'm criticising this pundit).

by **66-1112520797** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:30 am

One other thing.

I bet all the pro rotational crew agreed with everything Souness did, Evans did and Houllier did. Until of course their tenure came to an end, then agreed with the boards decision to get rid. :nod

by **Leonmc0708** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:41 am

Bamaga man wrote:One other thing.

I bet all the pro rotational crew agreed with everything Souness did, Evans did and Houllier did. Until of course their tenure came to an end, then agreed with the boards decision to get rid.

I am not pro rotation, so may not fall into this category, however I cant see how anyone though Souness was doing a good job, Evans and houllier took the team as far as they could.

hindsight is all well and good, and I bet that lots of people who though Houllier was great in 2001 changed their opinion of him as well mate.

by **account deleted by request** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:49 am

Bamaga man wrote:One other thing.

I bet all the pro rotational crew agreed with everything Souness did, Evans did and Houllier did. Until of course their tenure came to an end, then agreed with the boards decision to get rid.

I must admit I agreed with most of Souness' signings :sniffle

,
I liked the football we played under Evans :sniffle

I thought we would win the league with Houllier :sniffle

The only one I thought we should have kept at the end of their tenure was Evans.

So you have me pretty much nailed Bamaga

Although I wanted to get rid of Souness and Houllier long before they went.

by **66-1112520797** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:52 am

s@int wrote:
Bamaga man wrote:One other thing.

I bet all the pro rotational crew agreed with everything Souness did, Evans did and Houllier did. Until of course their tenure came to an end, then agreed with the boards decision to get rid.

I must admit I agreed with most of Souness' signings ,
I liked the football we played under Evans
I thought we would win the league with Houllier

The only one I thought we should have kept at the end of their tenure was Evans.

So you have me pretty much nailed Bamaga

Although I wanted to get rid of Souness and Houllier long before they went.

Well at least your man enough to admit it S@int.

BTW mate, you called yourself a "happy clapper" I'd call you a happy chappy.

by **Simari** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:52 am

Sabre wrote:I can see that whenever we have 2 bad weeks, it's not only the manager who's not good enough, Crouch is insulted, we covet midfielders of other clubs, and we say straight away that the team that was 4th last season will beat us at the end. I saw too fastly saying last year ALonso was far from his game in the first season, and I see him missed when he's not on the pitch.

I think not only the manager, but many players need more respect.

Sabre, your reply was interesting until that part.

I think you made a generalisation of my post for no reason.

1. For the record, comments people made last season around certain players not performing early in the season, were directly related to their opinions of where we would finish at the end of the season. There are similarities this season too.

2. The team that finished 4th last season, has been a team in the making for 2 years now, the core of which has been playing together a lot and more importantly *have learnt to play with each other*. That point was at the core of my post, which you missed completely.

3. Alonso, on or off the pitch, still won't solve our issues up-front (Torres on his own, is not the solution)

4. There is a big difference between slagging off players and questioning their continued inconsistency. I believe you are confusing those concepts.

5. As for Gerrard, I don't doubt that he is the *jack of all trades* midfielder, and my comparison with Cesc was to highlight the point of consistency. Further to that, he needs demonstrate consistency as our captain, especially to our talented new, young signings in Torres and Babel. He can learn from John Terry in that aspect (as much as I don't like Terry for his attitude towards refs when they show cards against Chelsea)

by **bigmick** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:04 pm

I must confess after banging on about it for months, I'm currently bored by the rotation debate as well. I say currently because there's nothing new coming up (Tompkins' takes on the whole thing have all been posted before) and most people seem to have prety much made their minds up where they stand for now.

My suspicion is that for almost everyone, human nature dictates that a change of tack this far in for any of us at this stage is pretty unlikely, we are going to go down with the ship one way or another. I can't really imagine a scenario where most of the people who openly agree with the rotation policy would come out and say, "I called it wrong, we would have gone much closer to winning the title without it" and similarly, we'd have to go pretty close to actually winning it for me to be conviced it helped us (although as I've said on a few occasions, if we get within six points at the end with the current rate of rotations being continued then I'm wrong).

Funnily enough the debate seems to go in waves almost with a mind of it's own. A couple of pages back you had the "pro" camp having a good old back slap as they ridiculed the "anti's", while the anti's seem to have lost the appetite for debate just now (I know I have anyway).

Ultimately we'll see come the end of the season of course. I've made my benchmark clear once again this thread, but it may never get tested because my suspicion is that we are about to enter a sustained period (about five or six games) of consistent selections in all competitions except possibly the Carling Cup. Those of us who believe it has an effect on fluency are about to get our wish I feel, and I suspect that we will see a return to form during that period.

Just so I don't get accused of performing a back-flip I'll say this. If we continue to rotate in all competitions (I'm aware that in the league the numbers aren't quite so mystifying) at the same rate we are now, we will be out of the title race completely and absolutely before Christmas. There, no sitting on the fence from me.

by **Sabre** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:16 pm

Simari: No, I didn't miss your points, nor I was implying that you were the one slagging off players, that is, do not take my post personally. I simply read your post, took a single point of it, and made a post based on it, but it wasn't a reply to you nor directed especifically to you. The fact I didn't use other parts of your post doesn't mean I miss, overlook, or disagree them. I cannot even talk about Cesc's consistency because I don't see all his mathes, the only "reply" bit to your post is making clear that I consider Gerrard a better and more complete midfielder. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

As for point 5, Gerrard is jack in all trades, but that doesn't mean (just in case, I know you didn't write that) he's no master in no one. I think we could notice he needed matches just after his broken toe, but I wouldn't call it inconsistency. In the last two games he hasn't played badly. Gerrard's game was not very far from games in which he was treated as a hero, the difference is as big as a ball in the post, some inches sometimes.

In fact, there are times in which you cannot explain why a team plays badly talking about player's performances. Sometimes it's the team as a colective what is not working. And it's not easy to explain why this happen, and reasons and answers are complex despite some pundits like to blame rotation.

by **Simari** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:19 pm

bigmick wrote:Just so I don't get accused of performing a back-flip I'll say this. If we continue to rotate in all competitions (I'm aware that in the league the numbers aren't quite so mystifying) at the same rate we are now, we will be out of the title race completely and absolutely before Christmas. There, no sitting on the fence from me.

Taking on from BigM's point, my opinion isn't so much that rotation doesn't work, but rather that some players in key positions are not willing/able to learn and adapt to play-styles of others in the team.

It is a big ask for players to adapt so easily and almost certainly requires the squad to have been together for a couple of years before you start seeing results (or in Rafa's case, players shipped out).

I still don't believe we have a squad of players that can be rotated *effectively*, and share BigM's view that we will almost certainly be out of the Title race before Christmas, if we continue to rotate in all competitions.

by **Gerrard30391** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:46 pm

Rotation Rotation Rotation!!!!! It's all :censored:

!!
MAN U dont do it, chelsea don't, Arsenal, they use that for the mickey mouse cups, which is just enough for the first team players to get over fatigue.

Torres, Gerrard, Carragher, Reina, Riise, Mascherano, at the minute pennant
they should all play if theyre fit!!!!! add an on form fit dagger agger to that

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