Portsmouth v Liverpool Match Thread

Liverpool team today.

Reina
Arbeloa
Finnan
Agger
Carragher
Sissoko
Alonso
Benayoun
Pennant
Crouch
Voronin

Subs.
Itandje
Hyppia
Gerrard
Babel
Torres

No Riise, Masherano, Kuyt today.
This goes to show just how strong our squad is.

I'm starting to think Riise's gone down a lot in Rafa's estimation. If he chooses not to play him when Finnan's still recovering from a knock, is there much hope for him?

I'm starting to think Riise's gone down a lot in Rafa's estimation. If he chooses not to play him when Finnan's still recovering from a knock, is there much hope for him?

I think it is hard to judge that sort of thing after an international break. If you look at the starting 11 today, then none of them have played 2 times 90 minutes in the international games. Most of them have played much less than that. Riise is the only one who have done so, as far as i know. Gerrard, Babel and Torres did not play 2 times 90 minutes, but close to. They are on the bench. Do not know about Kuyt an Mascherano though.

The thing that Rafa wanted Heinze was a much stronger sign in my opinion, because i think that Rafa prefer Aurelio over Riise. On the other hand, Rafa always speaks of players giving him "a lot of options" and Riise certainly is at very unique kind of defender i terms of going forward, so maybe that adds to Riises chances of staying.

By the way, what a bench today! Sure have some attacking options out there!

I'm starting to think Riise's gone down a lot in Rafa's estimation. If he chooses not to play him when Finnan's still recovering from a knock, is there much hope for him?

Definintely - I can really see him leaving Anfield this season.

Obviously would love us to score soon, but just to stop that stupid tw*t ringing that bell.

Why on earth would you :
1) take a bell to a footy match
2) ring it constantly ?

Come on you Reds 

Am watching via sopcast at
http://livefooty.doctor-serv.com/sat15.9/Portsmouth_Liverpool.html

is my first attempt at this....and it is quite good, as I couldnt find the liverpool match televised on anything here in Aus

Martin Tyler mentioned that Riise was slightly injured playing his international mid week....

Obviously would love us to score soon, but just to stop that stupid tw*t ringing that bell.

Hope both his arms fall off, it's driving me nuts!
Pompey look weak in possesion... giving the ball away too often.

Watching the match via Star Sports on the TVu console, full signal, excellent!

Here's the link http://www.tvunetworks.com/. Once installed click on the Star Sports tab.

Penalty - Agger on Kanu, Alonso booked...

Kanu v Reina... SAVED!

WHAT A SAVE....

Go US....

I hope referee's are going to be consistant with the shirt pulling.
Yes in my eyes it was a foul by Arbeloa, therefore a penalty.
But this ruling has to be applied to all.

Reina YOU BEAUTY !!

REINA!!!!!!!
Refs can't keep giving these penalties, he ain't gunna save em' all
What goes around comes around
looks like decisions should start going our way

Refs can't keep giving these penalties,

He didn't, the assistant (linesman) did.

Obviously would love us to score soon, but just to stop that stupid tw*t ringing that bell.

Why on earth would you :
1) take a bell to a footy match
2) ring it constantly ?

Come on you Reds 

mrtommo, Pompey is in 'ampsher. The stewards probably had to stop the guy bringing in the cow!

Veronin was a lucky boy with that challenge on Johnson.
Liverpool look comfortable but I feel it's too back and forth, a midfield game, need to wind up the pressure and make the possession count.

Half Time.  Well done Pepe Reina for keeping the reds in the game.

We really need 3 points here boys.  Let's up our game in the second half - Torres!

Time to introduce Stevie and Nando me thinks ,

It's still 0 - 0 in the battle of the gobshites.
Lets hope for that to stay the same, and Liverpool to bang a few in.

Torres for Crouch, and maybe Babel for Pennant.

We really need to work on our set pieces. All those free kicks in the first half & not one decent opportunity to show for it? Alonso shouldn't be taking them when we're having a go at goal, out of the players currently on the pitch I'd go for Voronin.

Yeah probably best 0-0 for the two sh*te's.

Bad news Man Utd 1 - 0

Tot 1 - Arse 0

Yeah probably best 0-0 for the two sh*te's.

Should have kept schtum.

How on earth did he miss that

How on earth did he miss that

The asshole with the bell put him off! 

Voronin has definitely been the choice of the strikers for me.

time to put Torres on for Crouch me thinks...

time to put Torres on for Crouch me thinks...

You called it.

Saw that coming a mile off! Time to shine Fernando!

.TV faster than Star Sports which is slower than BBC, I noticed that with the Toulouse match. Turn off the .TV console if watching Star sports - unless you want to read the result before you see it!

Stevie on - Rafa's going for the jugular! Hope he gets the bellend with the bell!

Torres to get the winner.

whats the scores now guys?

Torres can have the winner, as long as somebody else scores first.......

I had 2 - 0 in the prediction league...
still  0 -0

We need to start hitting the target. How many times has the ball gone over the bar?

Why didnt rafa start torres and maybe babel? this match is F***ing important for us why experimenting?

How many times have they been given a chance to shoot, lucky their radar is sh** today...

Why didnt rafa start torres and maybe babel? this match is f***ing important for us why experimenting?

The side has the feel of a team that has been put together after a set of internationals - funny that.

We need to start hitting the target. How many times has the ball gone over the bar?

Not quite as many times as that idiot has been ringing his bell.
I am predicting Babel will come on late on, don't know why but he has the pace, might upset some tired Pompey defence.

I was typing that before Alonso signalled to Rafa! 

The last 10 minutes are where games like this are won and lost...

guys my nerves are finished the game not being showed here so im reading your posts keep them coming for the updates

Five mins to go - Torres wins the ball on the left, puts the ball across the goal and it's inches away from Voronin's sliding boot...oooooooohhhhhhh

Less than 5 minutes to go.  Rafa you need to stop titting about with the team to prove a point to McLaren etc

Cross into the box from Pompey; Reina punches it away and sandwiches Finnan with a Pompey player. Finnan goes down. Looks like we are settling for a drawer...

3 mins added time.
Now or never Red men

Benitez picked a team whilst looking ahead to the Porto game.  Not good.

Best 11 should have been out their today from the kick off.  F**k the Porto game.  We've been poor today - no question.  No  doubt Rafa will blame the internationals but he should have started with a better squad. 

United had the same problem and won at Everton - a far trickier game than this was.

3 minutes of added time. kanu goes down in the box - ref does nothing - he was right.

Full Time.

sh*te.

Full Time, 0-0. we should have won this easily.

Game over. Disappointing performance. We didn't create enough or hit the target enough. Their finishing was abysmal, otherwise they could have nicked it. I'd have to say the scoreline reflects the game

Full time.
As JD says a poor game.

No improvements from last season at times, we still look indiscisive and poor choice of passing / movement.
We have to nick a goal in games like these otherwise we will lose points to the other 'big' teams.

Play your big players, win the game and sub them in the latter stages.

This was never going to be an easy match for a few reasons.

Pompey aren't Derby, no 6-0 here.
They have tried and tested, seasoned players.
We lost the momentum due to the international games.

Think about this, 1 point gained is 2 points lost but not 3. Remember this at the end of the season, we might not have won but we didn't lose on the road, that's worthy of a bit of credit!

That Pompey crowd was pretty decent too, fair play.

3 wins out of 5 doesn't look half as good now does it.

Still top but only just and United have turned their season around by sheer hard work and perserverance and playing to the final whistle - something we certainly didn't do today.

Agree mrtommo. We were winning the ball in midfield a lot, especially early on. Had the likes of Torres been on from the start, we could have had a field day. Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

Absolutely piss poor performance. I don't agree that team selection was at fault, the team we started with should've been able to win this game, we just played sh*t.

Disappointed with the result, but like previous posts, its better then a loss. I also agree we should have started our stronger team today, that is if we want to win the leauge. A lot of fans may disagree with me, but the champions league just isn't as important to me as ending this drought of not winning the league. Typical Man U today, pulling out a win in the last 10 minutes. I've said before, playing hard in the last 10 minutes, and not settling for the draw will bring us the leauge title.

Agree with JD and Tommo about fielding a stronger squad. Get stuck in and get the game won then you can take certain players off. Crap game but a draw isn't the most worst result and I think we all knew that this game was going to be a testing one for us.
I'm disappointed at the way we were so easily reverting to playing direct down the middle of the pitch as the game progressed. There's a whole pitch there - use it and play some football on the floor!!! That's what Pompey were trying to do in the second half and you have to say Pepe was more busy than James. James didn't have to make a save in the second half until the 80th minute!! That's pretty poor and that's pretty much usually an outcome of playing direct balls down the middle. Their defenders will lap it up all day long.

Great save by Pepe for the pen. Great to see Carra come back and command the back four as usual. Can't really be overjoyed about much else apart from the fact we got something rather than nothing out of the game. I think with the changes made, we missed that extra bit of quality to break a determined and disciplined Pompey down.

Lessons to be learned from this game.

1) Alonso can pass a ball sweetly, but he can't take a free kick. He is not going to score them for us, let someone else take them.

2) Crouch is a great player, but the team seem incapable of playing with him. Whenever he's on we resort to long balls, we should keep him as an impact player from the bench.

3) If you spend £20m+ on a player, play him FFS. I can understand Gerrard getting a rest as he's had a busy week & played on an injury, but why the F**k wasn't Torres playing? The difference both he & Gerrard made was obvious when they came on.

In the end, we were very lucky not to have been 2 - 0 DOWN...
in previous seasons this would have been a loss...
Torres seems to be better at creating chances than Crouch, and
I thought that they were able to provide a better delivery to their strikers in shooting positions..
and David James didnt have to make a 2nd half save till the 80th minute...

but like I said, it isnt the loss that it might have been

Lessons to be learned from this game.

1) Alonso can pass a ball sweetly, but he can't take a free kick. He is not going to score them for us, let someone else take them.

2) Crouch is a great player, but the team seem incapable of playing with him. Whenever he's on we resort to long balls, we should keep him as an impact player from the bench.

3) If you spend £20m+ on a player, play him FFS. I can understand Gerrard getting a rest as he's had a busy week & played on an injury, but why the fu*k wasn't Torres playing? The difference both he & Gerrard made was obvious when they came on.

Absolutely!

What makes me laugh about the 2nd lesson is that we could actually play with Crouch in the side, but we have to use all of the pitch and move the ball about as best as we can on the floor to stretch the play. But it usually does just resort to us being more direct. If he was on the bench today and we played Torres instead, I honestly believe that we could have kept possesion a lot better than we did and moved the ball from side to side to create space for Torres or Voronin to run in to. In turn the possiblities of more chances coming our way.

Absolutely outraged by the result and the performance today.  I couldn't believe the team selection from the start.  We have come across problems with picking the weaker team against weaker sides but Portsmouth shown they were no push overs. 

We can't have this attitude coming into a game, I know it was International duty for most of our players, but F***ing play them.  I don't care if we are playing Porto away, the Premiership is priority.  Should of had Gerrard and Torres on from the start. It was obvious when they started combining.  Maybe even Babel should of started.  Benayoun didn't show too much enthusiasm to play in the Red shirt, and another average performance from Crouch.

The bonus to this is that we did get something out of the game that we really didn't deserve to be fair.  Portsmouth had about 3 sitters and a penalty to put us to bed.  And they didn't take those chances, thankfully.

Reading through everyones posts, I think we are all upset that the frigging Mancs got a win in the last 5 minutes, and we only managed to grab a point.  Poor effort from our boys today.

Oh and I must add, my razor is going to be collecting more dust if you get what I mean

ola from tenerife  I think most of us agreed in the "next 5 matches thread" that this would be tough. Especially after the international break. We arent going to play brilliant week in week out the truth is we could have been beaten but werent. Sky sports are almost writing us off now after a bleedin draw which i think is good we dont want to get build up by them too much

Team selection was right i felt as crouch pennant finnan carragher arbeloa didnt play and i dont think voronon pla yed twice for the ukraine

heads up people its a point at a tough place to go

Why an earth did Rafa leave Torres on the bench? He is on fire scoring goals and he leaves him on the bench, crouch for me didnt do enough we tested James very few times! My team, would have had Gerrard ,Torres and Babel in it!

Told you to send me and Ms Gerrrard away   

And agree with whats been already said on here, Torres and Gerrard should both of been out from the start.  If it wasnt for Pepe then we would of been in sh*t street

Very poor performance today. I don't fully agree that the team selection was totally to blame as I feel the team selected should be well capable of winning the game, I just feel the players selected didn't perform. We lost the high tempo attacking game that we have been playing since the start of the season and seemed to go back to the unimaginative and frustrating football that was evident in a lot of our performances last season. When Crouch plays the team seem to automatically switch to playing the long ball all the time even though he is capable of playing to feet just as well, if not better. I don't usually like to single out players but for me Crouch and Benayoun( who have been most outspoken about the rotation) didn't show enough desire and quality to say to Rafa that they should be starting more games. But in saying that none of the team played well today as there was too many misplaced passes, sloppy mistakes all over the pitch and no real penetration up front. I know its early days but I was looking for another three points to build on the start we have made to the season and was quietly confident of winning this game comfortably. But at least we didn't lose and this point may seem a lot better at the end of the season than it does now.

RAFA: POINT WAS PROBABLY RIGHT



Rafa Benitez admitted both sides could have walked away with all three points after the goalless draw at Fratton Park on Saturday lunchtime.

The Spaniard made four changes from the Derby demolition, with skipper Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres consigned to the bench after featuring heavily for their countries in midweek.
 
The Reds threatened without their influential duo but had a Pepe Reina penalty save – as well as glaring misses from John Utaka and Sulley Muntari – to thank for a clean sheet at the other end.
 
Benitez said: "After an international break it is very difficult to pick the team because you don't have any time to train with the players.
 
"Mascherano, for example, was in Australia playing in a very important friendly!
 
"In the first half I thought we were the better team and controlled the game. In the second half it was very open and we both had very good chances. We could have won it, they could have won it. In my opinion we deserved at least a point.
 
"They had a couple of clear chances but they were from our mistakes and not from open play. I think we were better than them in the first half and were controlling the game. Our substitutes came on in the second half and helped us, it was just a pity we couldn't score.
 
"I'm not sure if it was a penalty for them or not, certainly for this country it looked a harsh decision. But it's okay, I'm not going to complain about that."

Come on Rafa.  We got battered out there today, just admit that you made a mistake fielding a weaker side against Pompy.  I thought we learned our lesson with these years ago!

Harsh, Court. Rafa's being philosophical - and I can't say we were battered.

I agree with the view expressed earlier in this thread that some players could have started and been brought off, but that's barring problems or injuries to others, at which point that plan goes out the window, and becomes a burden with tired players on the pitch. It's a gamble, but with a game like this, I think it was worth trying.

I think Rafa was just a bit too safe here, and sent the wrong message before the game about the team, although these days it must be murder trying to keep all your game plans and tactics under wraps; so he was honest about it.

Apart from hiding my disappointment before with the rallying "Chin up lads!" I too was a little pissed at the team selection. We did not start with our strongest 11  today.
Seeing Crouch in the starting 11 was strange considering his total minutes in 1st team football, for club and country. He wasn't as sharp as Torres would have been. Veronin was offbeat today and wasteful with chances that fell his way.
Pennant and Yossi did nothing too fantastic today and Sissoko and Alonso looked average too. Alonso can hit a ball but it would have had to have been something special to beat a dogged Pompey defence. The back 4 used all their 'Get out of jail' cards today thanks to some sloppy shooting from Portsmouth. Pepe actually put in the best performance today, doing everything that was asked of him which, in real terms, was too much for comfort.

Rafa has to acknowledge his team selection wasn't correct, start with your strongest 11 not finish with it. It was either give the bench warmers a chance to prove their 1st team credentials and let the big guns finish off a weakened side or believe the opposition would crumble against a tough 2nd eleven. Neither worked but like I said before - still a point away is better than loosing 3. Would we still be so damning if the same starting 11 actually won the game? Obviously not.

2nd with a game in hand and a better goal difference. Could be better, could be much worse.

Well, personnally, I think today performance is not bad, The team controlled the game in the first haft and 25 first minutes of the second half, the strategy, the speed, the skill, all, not bad at all, I don't know how to say, but when I watch LiverpoolFC playing, I feel that thier level is cleary higher than Portsmouth's level, just that they are not really lucky today. I think Portsmouth don't have any star but they have the coherence and they played defense really carefully, they don't give LiverpoolFC any place to shoot so the chance can't turn in to goals. But the way LiverpoolFC create chance is really more professionnal than Portsmouth, passing the ball really quickly, move reasonnably and great personnal skill. Portsmouth's chance was created just when LiverpoolFC's defense lost thier concentration. After all, from now on, LiverpoolFC have to forget about this match to prepare to a bigger battle next tuesday, they're still undefeated after all! 

We're still doing better than at any time at this stage in the last five seasons
http://www.anfield-online.co.uk/stats/2008/lfc-season-comparison.html

but two years ago it was around this point that we went on a fantastic run of victories.

It goes without saying that our next two Premiership games against B'ham (home) and Wigan (away) should be 6 points banked.

I'm fecking discusted with our performance today...and that's 100% down to the sh8t management of Rafa today.

He got the the team selection totally wrong, and delayed making the crucial substitutions.

If Gerrard and Torres had started the second half, we would have won this game, against a very poor Pompy team.

AND PLEASE - Let Crouch go.  And drop Alonso - how cack is he playing.

Really disappointing performance.The team that started today wasnt our strongest 11 by some way.I can understand this team starting against Birmingham next week but not Portsmouth away(no disrespect).
I really cant understand Mascherano not playing regularly.

One of the most disappointing aspects of today's game were our set pieces. We had so many free kicks outside the penalty area but none of them worth talking about.

A draw is a decent result as the best chances of the game were created by Pompey.

Mascherano didn't play because he played in a friendly for Argentina in Australia, probably jet-lagged.

Personally would of preferred Torres to start instead of Crouch, the difference in the two stands out a mile, I think Crouch actually slows down the way we play.

Still we're unbeaten, 2nd in the league and another clean sheet for Reina. Glass half full for me

A draw is a decent result as the best chances of the game were created by Pompey.

Personally would of preferred Torres to start instead of Crouch, the difference in the two stands out a mile, I think Crouch actually slows down the way we play.

Still we're unbeaten, 2nd in the league and another clean sheet for Reina. Glass half full for me

Two very good points, totally agree.

Just watched the game again there and if playing Crouch slows our play down and encourages a natural long ball game, then you need Gerrard in the middle to follow things up. Otherwise possesion will be easily lost and you'll see our wide players being drawn inside.

Should really have played better today though when it came to being offensive. But true, we're still unbeaten and second in the league at this stage of the season. Another clean sheet for Pepe, when it so could have easily not been. So time to leave this one out to dry and learn from it. It's not all doom and gloom......

Sorry guys, but I was looking at the voting of Man of the Match, and I saw that 86 people had actually voted for Benayoun, I think that his performance was terrible. So many times when we were attacking and he had the ball he would always choose the worse option, for example; when they had 5 players defending and we had 4 players attacking (including Benayoun), he could have passed the ball out in front of Torres on the corner of the box but instead he passed it into 2 LFC players and 4 Portsmouth players, and even before that chance I thought he was playing badly, does anyone agree or is it just me?

the reason we have been numerous points off the top in the last couple of seasons was because we lost at places like portsmouth, and apart from last season it was with a full strength side.
why question the gaffa?
three points today may have been great, but we have to take week 6 of the premiership in perspective. another three points may have been fine, but in the long run, one point was gaines and we have now got advantage game-wise over our rivals. The gaffa does not and will not concede any ground to our rivals, hence the point that we win zip in september, and having a squad like ours, means when someone like crouch, who has bitched for his place constantly,now has no argument after a contribution like todays.
this is what a squad is all about. Why be so negative about something that is positive at the moment?..?
we are a great side at full strength, and agreed when we change things, we can look ordinary.
However, still not conceding a goal from open play, and stil being unbeaten is very, very good
and is a reason to be very positive rather than the latter.
We have breathing space from our rivals, exept arsenal, which means we are in a much better state than we were in the last few starts to our season, and having looked at the table towards our next few games we could be very successful football wise

Got to agree that was a pretty poor performance today ..

Is it just me or is it when Crouch plays we seem to just lob balls up to him ..
The first few games we played without him we stroked the ball around and took on the defenders with pace ,today with Crouch and veronin there was little penetration and zero shots..

I think Rafa needs to stop underestermating teams and field the best side and only change when injuries or tiredness arises

i think we now know who our best 12-13 squad players are...
crouch and yossi should get the boot....what a joke they are

I actually rate Yossi.

Ok - League wise, we should be happy...but there has to be a huge negative towards our performance yesterday and what seems to me...SAME OLD LIVERPOOL, NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

And that's aimed at RAFA.  I thought he'd realised that totally changing your team week in week out, just doesn't work.

I actually thought Pompy were awful yesterday and for the taking...but on the chances made, we ended up being for the taking....which is shocking.

Disappointed - more so with the performance.

Leaving aside whether Rafa was right or wrong to bench Torres etc - the fact is the team we put out should have beaten Portsmouth.

Lucky to escape with a draw.  But maybe in the past we would have lost that game.  Trying to remain positive and looking forward to 6 points in the next two games.

Very upset with the selection today, i think this goes to show rafa had one eye on the champions league game, i believe he'd still rather win that then the premiership, i think you have to start with your strongest line up in every league game or you have no chance of winning the title, i would have thought he'd realised this by now.

Fratton park is a hard place to go but we come away with a point and not playing all that well either,Rafa done himself no favour picking Crouch and Vorronin together if he was gonna pick one of them then it would be better to partner them with either Kuyt or Torres,2 points dropped im afraid hope this isnt costly come may.

Now we've all had our moan - me included - we should not forget that we do not know   what kind of state these players came back from international duty in. Don't forget that travelling takes it out of you as well.
We are all disappointed we didn't win this after the results going in, but we could have lost yesterday and didn't. I plumped for a draw going in because Pompey are an awkward side and have strengthened during the summer. I have my moans about the team selection, but Rafa gets it right far more often than he gets it wrong, so I'm not about to slam anyone on the basis of what has been, essentially, an off team performance. What matters now is what happens next.

You're pretty much right Jammy.  It's just disappointing when you see other sides grinding out the results.  We could be a lot worse and considering this stage in the season we're usually way off the pace we're still in pretty decent shape.

Let's just look ahead to the next game and hope it was a blip.

On the one hand I'm well disappointed with the result, coz three points would have been so much better, and as others have said earlier in this thread, the team selection was a little odd to say the least.

On the other hand, I can partly understand Rafa's logic, given that most of the players were only just back from internationals, and with the Porto game in a couple of days, his team selection for the Pompey game was likely to be restricted, and from that point of view, I'm glad we came away with a point and a clean sheet.

With Birmingham and Wigan up next, which should be a fairly straight forward six points, I am still very positive about the season so far.

YNWA

 well I dont totally agree  when we say some players were tired because of international duties,,other teams have international players too ,yet they played and played well, IMO
  I accept saying rafa head the porto game in mind and I am in favour of team rotation, but dont like the idea of changing 4/5 players from game to another.....
  hope it will not be the same type of rotation in the next 2  games ,vs birmingham and wigan thinking we can beat them both with half of the ideal  starting 11 at the moment
   but on the other hand as it turned out  happy with the point against a tough side   like pompey when playing home
 

I say no matter who plays where, if we have a winning type of game play we use it unless for some reason we defend

I would of taken a point before the kick off but having seen the game they were there for the taking and Rafa got the selection wrong for me. Torres and Babel should of started. I thought we hit too many long balls and these were too easy for Campbell and Distan to mop up all day long. I would of liked to have seen a bit more football being played and I believe this would of beaten Pompey. Great save by Pepe from the penalty, even the Pompey Lads in the Boozer after the game didn't know why it was given! They weren't supprised Kanu missed it though, They don't seem to like him much and have affectionately named him the Slug!

All in all though it was a good day, 6.05 train from Limey to Euston, underground to waterloo and then onto Fratton. Alcohol was being comsumed at 8.30 and like a true Lush I blame this on Sky for the Kick off time! The Journey home took in those Picturess towns of Gliford, Manchester and Southport. By this time it was too late to get home and I crashed on my mates couch. I awoke feeling not to clever on Sunday and got a train to town. Diner was a Wetherspoons Burger before more ale was consumed in the Empire and then Liverpool Public houses. I finally returned home at 9.05 pm Sunday. I am now looking for a good devoice Lawyer!

  What's the problem Crazy Horse? You can't be blamed for these early kick offs. Sounds like you had a cracker of a weekend. Only problem being - and I agree totally - it's a shame we couldn't play football on the floor.

This may be a bit late but I haven't been able to get on line since Saturday. What a lot of tosh. Resting players after 6 games. This shouldn't happen before 20-25 games. When players are off form or injured yes. When a team is winning they have to keep going to maintain the consitency. This rotation is rubbish. It seems Rafa has not  learned from his previous seasons in the prem. Or perhaps he sees the C.L. as priority. When the substitutions were made on Sat, there was a different tempo, more pace and urgency to our game, more movement off the ball, more players wanting the ball, more direct play. Doesn'tthat say something. Use the squad players for what they are. Cover for injuries etc. 2 more points thrown away, Same old nonsense then and after what was a great start.