Rotation - some facts and figures

[chancer]

It's the 'False Memories' one.

Ah yes, thanks.

 

[P.D.]

Corluka lost time due to his poor form though - i.e. how was a regular for us initially.

Krunchie came in as a squad player and was always going to be that unless we had 4 injuries/suspensions in midfield.

Corluka did lose form but that doesnt mean that he is rubbish forever, by all accounts he's doing well in Germany.

Niko is at the very least capable of scoring goals which we are sorely missing from midfield.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Corluka did lose form but that doesnt mean that he is rubbish forever, by all accounts he's doing well in Germany.

Niko is at the very least capable of scoring goals which we are sorely missing from midfield.

Which is the one league in the world where the pace of the game is at least equal to the Premiership...if not slightly faster!

 

[Fuego]

Woah there tiger!

Are we now saying Harry didnt tinker enough?

Squad rotation doesn't have to involve changing system at all. SAF actually does alter his from time to time, but he uses 2 main ones. He'll tweak them, sure, but you generally know what you're going to get with Man United. His selection of players is usually pretty good, Harry's selection of players isn't quite as good. Sometimes he'll do things that make sense, other times he won't. With SAF, he plays Park when a box-to-box workhorse that'll run for 93-96 minutes is a good thing to have, he'll play only one striker with Rooney or Welbeck on the wing when he needs to put another man in midfield, he'll make intelligent substitutions that can change the flow of matches and most of the time, he doesn't do stupid things. But in all fairness, it is unfair to compare Harry to SAF. SAF is an excellent motivator, a good tactician and is the reason Man United are capable of competing against better teams and still win the league time and time again.



As far as Man United's squad rotation goes, Man United have a weak "best team" compared to what they used to have, but bringing back Scholes (to stop them having to play Rooney in midfield or the Rafael and Park combination) has given Man United a very good squad, even if there are fewer superstars than they used to have.

I'm not entirely sure those numbers are correct because players like Vidic are missing, but Pogba is there... Anyway, looking at it, you can see Valencia (he's a good player, but he's not Beckham or Ronaldo), Young, Nani, Giggs, Carrick, Scholes, Park, Jones, Cleverly, Pogba, Anderson, Fletcher and co... Now, most of them have replaced someone slightly better than them or aren't quite as good as they were a couple of years ago, but those are a lot of players to rotate into the midfield (Jones can and has played in the midfield a few times, despite being a CB, he's a utility player and plays RB sometimes too)... They've had players missing due to injury as we have but just off the top of my head we have: Bale, Lennon, Modric, Parker, Sandro, Hudds, Livermore, VDV, Rose (we use him as a left back, I know), Bentley (lol, I know, although he would have stayed on loan if he hadn't been injured), Kranj, Dos Santos, Townsend, Falque, Pienaar, Carroll, Jenas (LOL, I know)...

Most of the ones at the end are on loan, Jenas came back to us after he tripped on a sprinkler and ended his season... But out of best midfields, I think we win. (We might not be able to compete with Berba (last year's Golden Boot winner along with Teves), Rooney, Hernandes and Welbeck for strikers or possibly even their defenders (although BAE vs Evra can be debated and I don't know if Rafael/Smalling/Jones beats Walker/Charlie, etc, etc.) But for "best midfield", we win....

The disappointing thing is that squad we were all excited about at the start of the year when we scoffed at those that felt we'd fall apart with injuries just hasn't been allowed to fill in. Kranj was excellent in certain matches earlier in the season, he hasn't really let us down. Sure, he wasn't great in the first half at Arsenal, but no one was, Kranj actually did pretty well and we were level at 2-2 when we went off. No one expected him to get up and down like Walker...

So the rotation of their midfield was good for United, that's why people are saying how great they are despite crashing out of the CL and their fans crying about their midfield being awful. (Before Scholes came back, I don't think they had a midfield for a lot of the games. injuries meaning players were played out of position made them look really bad.)

Sure, we didn't have Hudds because of injury, we lost Lennon for chunks of the season (nothing really new there), VDV and others were missing from time to time too... But Fletcher has been injured for ages, Cleverly has missed a lot of time, Valencia, Nani and Young all had time out, Scholes wasn't there until January. They've always had options for the wings, even if they put strikers there sometimes when they only play 1 man up front... But since Scholes returned, the only points they've dropped were at the Bridge in that 3-3.

(There is still the argument that their best 11 is not as good as it should be... Bilbao put their best side to shame, even if the Man United players weren't fully motivated.)

With squad management, SAF has been able to pick sides and rest players for upcoming games. To win the league, your first team only has to be about the 5th best in the league. If your best 11 is the 5th best in the league, you only have to play your best side against the 4 better teams and maybe a few difficult away games.

So if Man United put out a team that most of the top 4 would absolutely destroy, that team could still beat most of the league.

Man United have failed at cup competitions this year, but the league is a competition that revolves around being consistent and being able to beat weaker teams.

Barca or Real Madrid would fudging destroy Man United in a two legged tie, but Man United have a squad of players that are good enough to beat most of the teams in this league easily.


For the record, we dominated the game against Man United at WHL but they took their chances and at Old Trafford:

62 min A real boost for United, who'd have struggled to convince most neutral observers that they deserved to be ahead on the strength of that first hour. But Welbeck's been taking up some nice positions all game, and this time Tottenham neglected to mark him. Now, a free-kick to United right on the edge of the area as Kranjcar scythes down Evra.

60 min GOAL Manchester United 1-0 Tottenham (Welbeck) Great early cross, great soaring header! United make their pressure tell, and it's a goal crafted in youth. Cleverley had drifted to the right, received the ball from Young and crossed first time. Welbeck was around the penalty spot, leapt majestically and flicked a header past Friedel.

That's from the Telegraph ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...nchester-United-v-Tottenham-Hotspur-live.html) , because I didn't want people thinking I was going to make my next point purely out of blind bias... Until they scored, we looked as likely to win at Old Trafford as they did. The teams that day were:

Teams:
Manchester United (4-4-2): De Gea; Smalling, Jones, Evans, Evra; Nani, Anderson, Cleverley, Young; Welbeck, Rooney.
Subs: Lindegaard, Fabio, Park, Carrick, Giggs, Berbatov, Hernandez.
Tottenham (4-4-1-1): Friedel; Walker, Dawson, Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon, Kranjcar, Livermore, Bale; Van der Vaart; Defoe.
Subs: Gomes, Bassong, Corluka, Huddlestone, Jenas, Townsend, Pavlyuchenko.

If you consider how weak that starting 11 would be considered now (Defoe lone striker instead of Ade, no Modric, no Parker, etc), it's crazy.

The next week, Man United beat Arsenal 8-2, they beat Chelsea 3-1 next, lost 6-1 to Emirates Marketing Project... They beat Arsenal 2-1 in the return match and I've already mentioned the 3-3 at Chelsea and the 3-1 at WHL.

Played 7

Wins 5

Draws 1

Loses 1.

They have to play Emirates Marketing Project once more this season. Throw Saudi Sportswashing Machine into the mix and that's another 1-1 draw and a 3-0 loss... Their only other loss this season was against Blackburn at OT and they had Rafael in midfield that day, with Rooney missing out because he went out over Christmas. They've had 4 draws total, so two other than the Chelsea and Saudi Sportswashing Machine draws. The rest of this season has been United beating the hell out of the weaker teams, sometimes refs help them, sometimes someone will pop up with a last minute winner, sometimes teams just fold.

They've done exceptionally well this year. They had all the big teams at home first, so the away games being the later games in the season really played to United's strength, fresh players for the second half of the season. I don't think SAF could have asked for more really.


You can look at Emirates Marketing Project's mega super ultimate squad and see David Silva never gets a rest and has gone to brick because he's tired, he's one of the best players in the league. Consequently, the Emirates Marketing Project team went to brick.


For us, you can see earlier in the season, we had Europa League and played as many kids as we could while still competing, but took advantage of not having 2 games a week. Now, we have had the F.A cup to tire us out and Manchester United have been F.A and Carling Cup free for a while, in addition to being Europa League free for a time too.

 

[billyiddo]

are the Manchester United totals league only ? i bet they are

if so i bet their key players have higher totals than ours including their CL & EL matches

 

[Bullet]

Fuego I think you're an excellent addition to the board, but you need to cut your posts down into bitesize pieces

I waded through it all... but I've forgotten what your point was

You need to post like advertising - give us a headline, tempt us in.

Then when people shout at you, wade in with the stats.

I disagree that you only need the 5th best team to beat everyone except the top 4 - that is bizarre, it doesn't work like that.




I feel that Redknapp should rotate more - e.g. Rose was great at left back, so try him out sometimes, give him 20 minutes at least. Swap your strikers when you're doing well.

Redknapp can't expect 5 players to play every minute of every game, so it is short sighted to even expect that to happen.

 

[Modric THFC]

Another thing to factor in to this is our brick pre season training. Remember all the injuries.
Remember this article http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896...t-premier-league-training-methods-are-ruining

 

[Modric THFC]

are the Manchester United totals league only ? i bet they are

if so i bet their key players have higher totals than ours including their CL & EL matches

Here's some stats from http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en

"United's top five most used players this season*(de Gea, Evra, Rooney, Evans and Ferdinand) have played 2,563 minutes less than Tottenham's top five (Friedel, Assou-Ekotto, Bale, Walker and Modric)."​

This doesn't hold up as well when we look at over all minutes. De Gea, Evra, Rooney, Evans and Ferdinand have played 15209 minutes only 731 minutes less then Friedel, Assou-Ekotto, Bale, Walker and Modric's 15940.

 

[billyiddo]

cheers

"United's top five most used players this season*(de Gea, Evra, Rooney, Evans and Ferdinand) have played 2,563 minutes less than Tottenham's top five (Friedel, Assou-Ekotto, Bale, Walker and Modric)."

2, 563 mins = 28 games
28 games / 5 players = 5.6 games

id wager that those 5 players played in more than 5 European games each this season

kinda blows this whole rotation thing out the water, if it is being used to say that the reason we are faltering in the league is because we aren't resting our players as much as the top teams

 

[Bullet]

It's a load of hogwash. Ferdinand was injured for ages, that's why his minutes are down.

Nice to see United lose tonight against the mighty Wigan.

Fergie isn't ALWAYS right it seems