yellow jumper

all the players were rested for the champions' league final because there were three or four weeks beforehand where rafa was able to write off league games. so that's a moot point. as for gerrard in the cup final, he was out on his feet. as were the rest of the team. tremendous courage and ability to win that game, but he was nowhere near his best physically. and against a better team than west ham we'd have been punished more than we were. i'd say rotation played a huge part in getting us to both champions' league finals. whether a premiership title can be won in the same way is still to be seen, but in his previous seasons i see nothing to suggest we'd have finished much higher in the table or anywhere close to top spot if he'd just played his best XI in every game. in other words we just weren't good enough over the whole season. clearly neither you nor i know whether we'll be good enough this year, but on paper at least the squad looks as strong as it has been in the benitez era.

they won the league those seasons because they had the best squad of players and a very good manager who made them very difficult to beat. they also had plenty of players who got rotated. they lost the league last season because they had a less good squad, united upped their level (while also rotating some very good players), and they suffered injuries to key men.

playing fifty games in a row and then having five off is hardly the same thing though, is it? chelsea might have won the title last season had they rotated more effectively earlier in the campaign. or built a better squad. gallas, carvalho, terry, cole and robben, at least, have all suffered long term strain related injuries on the back of chelsea's last few campaigns.

of course he believes we can win the league, it just happens that at this point in time not many of ours fans seem to believe he can. which is unlikely to help.

obviously there wasn't much skill involved because he lost the ball. the issue at the time was that he was disrespecting his opponent by putting his hands on his hips like that. remember angry reactions from the west brom players.

thought mascherano's passing let him down a bit. although he did all his usual defensive work really well. everyone's criticising the ommision of torres, but i thought crouch could have been effective against birmingham and might have helped gerrard's attacking game a bit more than kuyt and voronin did. although i agree that SG hasn't been at his best. striking how tired he looks, like he hasn't been sleeping. he's prioritising the carling cup, the w*****.

arsenal drew at blackburn, and would have won had lehman not thrown the ball into the net. both everton and rovers seem to have gone off the boil in the last few weeks. hopefully that'll continue up until we play them. arsenal've got west ham next week, a bit of a bogey team for them.

thought the midfield failed more than the centre forwards. no urgency and little creativity. benitez has been caned for playing 'weaker' teams in the cup competitions too. burnley the obvious example. arsenal last season too. the teams we are putting out now whether 'weaker' or not, are good enough to beat most teams at anfield.

we don't play crap football. not at home at least. and our record there over recent seasons - despite the odd fustrating draw like yesterday's - would have warranted a title challenge were we able to produce any consistency away from home. agree with those who argue that the issues with rotation have now become not much more than a stick with which to beat the manager, rather than the top and tail of our recent problems. bad performances from XIs that've showed in the past they are more than good enough to get results against the likes of birmingham are excused because there's always a "what if..." to aim at rafa in regards team selection. some of the latest innuendo about benitez's priorities and motivations are bizarre. we're still in a position to win the major trophies. and while the last three performances haven't been up to standards, the handwringing and recriminations are unhealthy for the club. why not leave them until later in the season when real and proper judgements can be made?

team full of roasters, you've got a team full of roasters.

really top quality player. hopefully he can stay fit now.

think if the teams playing well and keeping the ball crouch is a good option. when we're not he just becomes the easy option and balls are fired into him with no quality. if the rest of the team's under pressure i don't think it's enough to assume crouch will just hold everything up and scare defenders, he's only really effective when there's good movement around him. last night he would have come on as a lone striker with midfield and defence both under pressure, don't see him as effective in those circumstances. thought we played our best football in the last fifteen minutes with the movement of kuyt and voronin causing problems. so find it strange that anyone would criticize that substitution.

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i have no idea what state gerrard and torres were in when they came back. i do know gerrard isn't rested particularly often, if at all, and had been playing with a broken toe. he wasn't particularly convincing for england last week. torres was also pulled out of training while with his national team with a knock to the knee. although he played in both games. presumably there's also a difference between the possible consequences of playing 60 minutes on the back of those two internationals and all they entailed, and perhaps 60 tonight with the three days extra rest and assessments. it isn't the kind of information any of us have at hand, but stress injuries do happen. was allardyce right to play owen against derby last night? who knows what team he'll play against birmingham. i think there is also a case for getting the champions' league group won as quickly as possible, allowing him to concentrate his best resources on the premier league during a tougher run of fixtures.

it does go to show you can lose a game at fratton park even with your match winners on the pitch though. i don't believe we ever go into a game without the express intention of winning it either. that and occasionally resting your top players are different things, and realities at any top club. how many games did gerrard sit out last season?

we've got everton, newcastle and blackburn away towards the end of the champions' league group stages, and united home. what's nine points from three games in europe, and a chance to rest top players in the later games worth in that context? perhaps a point at fratton park wasn't what it might have been had we had torres and gerrard on the pitch, but we've lost there and elsewhere with all of our best players on the pitch before. as have plenty of the other top sides. we need to be there or there abouts in the league towards the end of the season, a point at portsmouth doesn't signal the end of that ambition. a muscle strain or ligament injury to one of our best players might. i don't see it as benitez prioritizing one game ahead of another. more an unwillingness to flog players now when there's a long slog still ahead.

in recent days mourinho, o'neil, and curbishley have all spoken out about the difficulties of playing club games so soon after international breaks. i dare say ferguson and wenger will have too, if not now, then certainly in the past. united and chelsea didn't have the same options to rest players over the weekend, they're both struggling with injuries. perhaps the managers should start to rotate a little more. arsenal don't have the squad to do it either.

do think that whether people like it or not that proper preparation and planning are vital parts of the way benitez manages. it's also hard to talk in absolutes about what would have happened if... that sort of thing can work both ways.

i can see both sides of it. and without knowing exactly what condition the players were in it's hard to make definitive comments. would go along with those who say if at all possible we should be playing our best players away from home, and do what resting/rotating needs to be done for the easier games at anfield. it is true though that we generally seem to have more in the tank than most of the other top sides come the end of the season. we obviously still need to be in the mix come february though. we have a pretty poor record at fratton park going back many years, that, along with the disjointed nature of the performance, and the fact it was an early saturday kick-off after a long international break, make it a decent point in my eyes.

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pennant still the best english right mid option. he can cross and dribble pretty reliably. any coincidence that most of england's best performers over the last two games have come from clubs outside the mythical top four? perhaps regular champions' league football effects the way players at chelsea, united, arsenal and liverpool approach international football.

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yakubu put him on his a*** too. and heskey destroyed him at stamford bridge the year cheyrou scored the winner. he's a good defender, but has looked less convincing in an england shirt and in a chelsea one on the occasions they've been without cech, carvalho, or when they've looked to play with a more expansive midfield. to be fair you could probably say similar things about carragher though.