When Squad Rotation Goes Wrong

By: Daryl | January 29th, 2009

Was feeling pretty excited about my new signings and the depth of my squad. Arrogant even. Because after an unbeaten pre-season I had what was – in hindsight – a bad, bad thought: Squad rotation.

I’d drawn Portuguese no-marks Maritimo (apologies to any Maritimo fans out there) in the Europa League fourth qualifying round, but the game was three days before my league opener. Away to Man Utd.

So decided to do some pre-emptive rotating by sending out a weakened team for the first leg at home to Maritimo and save the big guns for Utd. Mistake.

Europa League qual. 1st leg vs Maritimo (home) D 0-0
OK, so we didn’t lose. But it wasn’t pretty. Just two shots on target to show for 90 minutes against a team we should have demolished. Sure my big players got a rest, but this gives me zero momentum to start the season with.

vs Man Utd (away) D 0-0And here’s the upside. I had a good think about this game, and decided to defend. So my 4-1-2-2-1 (yep, back with that) became basically a 4-1-4-1 for the day. Like so:

It’s not quite as cowardly as it looks, because I did have Jonas, Marquinhos and Arshavin making forward runs (screenshot is taken from going back to the game and clicking “formation” which doesn’t show arrows) but I did chicken out of attacking Utd after the Maritimo disaster. Still, good result it turns out, and seems my boys are capable of shutting down the big boys when necessary.

vs Blackburn (home) D 2-2
Not sure why I did this, but after watching the Pog struggle up front on his own against Man Utd (he really was useless, Vidic ate him for breakfast) I felt the need to give him a partner and ended up playing 4-4-2 again. The result: two goals for The Pog (nice assist from Camacho, the boy can pass) but a midfield full of holes, hence Blackburn’s two equalizers.

- Dear Diary, Ignacio Camacho got injured in training today and will be out for two weeks. Frowny face emoticon.

Europa League qual 2nd leg vs Maritimo (away) W 1-0 (1-0 on agg)
Forget about squad rotation. And defending. I sent out my strongest possible team and shifted gears to a 4-2-4. My team talk was along the lines of “Tonight we dine in hell!!!” (by which I meant McDonalds) but all we got was a 2-0 win. A header from The Pog-meister (apparently Blackburn are looking at him in real life) and an OG from some imaginary Portuguese dude.

vs West Brom (away) D 1-1
You ever do something and that can’t remember why? For some reason I stuck with 4-2-4, thinking West Brom were so bad I could just turn up at The Hawthorns and demolish them. No sir, it doesn’t work like that. We were lucky to get a 1-1 draw, with Jonas equalizing in the 69th after Roman Bednar put the Baggies ahead.

Three points from first three Prem games, and no significant contributions from Marquinhos or Arshavin just yet.

So… new plan. No more squad rotation. At least not in the old school Rafa Benitez sense.

Plan is: Go back to one striker, one attacking mid, two wingers and two centre mids and stop making rash decisions like going 4-2-4 at the start of a game. Pick the best team available and then rest players when they start looking a bit tired (as in: pre-game condition in the low 90s).

Hope it’s not too late to save my season already.