Squad rotation revisited: The problem with lazy journalism

Whether it be zonal marking or squad rotation, all too often football pundits are guilty of lazy journalism as they attempt to simplify a complex situation to explain a team's form or results.

When asked this week whether he thought Liverpool are serious title contenders this season, an Anfield fan - and one of Rafa's biggest critics during the period when rotation headlines were ubiquitous - responded :

"Contenders - most definitely. Will we win it? I'm not so sure, probably not this season. We still need to strengthen at left -back, right midfield and up front. However, since my original comments that we will never win the league under Rafa Benitez, there has been a significant improvement in the team's performances - especially going forward - and also an improvement in tactics and team selection though I still feel we could use the ball better at times and pass it more.

''Also, I feel in a way our injuries have helped us more than hindered us. I'm not saying we don't miss Xabi Alonso, Daniel Agger and company, but due to injuries we have been forced to pick a more settled team with less changes which in turn has led to more familiarity among players which has added to fluidity and attacking play. There's a better sense of cohesion among the players because they are getting used to playing together!''

This sounded distinctly like an attempt to exit from the back door. Yes, our form has improved since this pundit's statement that the Reds wouldn't win under Rafa - but that's because he made a major doomsday prediction when our form wobbled a bit, and he set himself up for this by getting carried away with the pessimism and negativity after a home draw or two.

As far as the claims of a more settled squad are concerned, I can understand why people would think the squad is more settled (given the absence of rotation headlines when Liverpool are winning - as I predicted would happen when rotation bashing was the fashion during our lull in form). But they'd be mistaken, since the media tend to talk about rotation only when we're losing.

In reality, Rafa has 'rotated'" 41 times since our last defeat (against Besiktas) - that's 41 changes in nine matches. In other words, an average of about 4.6 rotations per match, no fewer than he made before (in fact, above his average for the last two seasons). In fact, he made five changes from the team that drew 0-0 with Blackburn, and had we not thumped Besiktas 8-0, we'd have seen headlines about squad rotation.

Rafa then made no changes against Fulham, and there was amazement that the tinkerman extraordinaire had kept the same line-up. Six changes were made to the side to face Newcastle, and had we not won 3-0 (and it could have been 6-0 if Fernando Torres had taken his hat-trick of clear chances) we'd have again seen Alan Hansen and the other pundits going on about Rafa's rotation.

Five changes followed that match as we hosted Porto, and again, you can imagine the headlines had we not won 4-1. Then there were four more changes this past weekend, and our 4-0 win again kept the critics of squad rotation silent.

So I'm afraid the injuries haven't done anything to stop Rafa from rotating. In fact, Agger was almost never rotated before his injury, and Xabi was rotated no more or less than Javier Mascherano, Momo Sissoko and Lucas Leiva have been since he was crocked. In fact, Lucas didn't get many matches at all prior to Xabi's injury and the rotation was between the other three, while now with Alonso injured, Lucas is being rotated in and out in his place.

Our strikers are still being rotated as much as they were when the anti-rotation headlines were a fixture on the back pages. Our improvement has nothing to do with a more settled side. It is simply the big players starting to pull their weight (most notably Steven Gerrard), the team finally converting chances into goals, and a general improvement in attitude and confidence.

If you believe the scaremongers, you would have thought zonal marking was a problem in the past, and then suddenly you would forget about it once the team adapted to it and started defending well (the best defensive record in the Premier League). Similarly, if you believed the nonsense the lazy journos were printing about squad rotation, you could also have made similarly infamous statements about Liverpool never winning under a rotation-obsessed Rafa.

Now that we are putting together good results - squad rotation still withstanding - and the lazy journos have conveniently shut-up about squad rotation, it seems the Rafa-rotation critics are attempting to back-track through the back-door.

The moral of the story? Lazy journalists and knee-jerkers are half-brothers. When results don't go our way, they all start shouting "the sky is falling" and looking for simple, short answers to our problems - be it zonal marking or squad rotation. When results go in our favour, the doomsday headlines disappear, and people quickly forget that "zonal marking is not the way to defend set-pieces" (after all, empty spaces don't score goals - men do! So why are they marking empty space?) and that you can't win with squad rotation. How are players going to learn to play with each other? Never mind the fact that they train together six days a week!

In short, the next time you read a headline succinctly summarising the key to a team's form (good or bad) with a simple theory like squad rotation or zonal marking, ask yourself whether you're reading lazy journalism masquerading as football punditry. All to often, you'll find the answer is a resounding "yes"!