rumoured team:
Jones; Wisdom, Carragher, Wilson, Robinson; Assaidi, Henderson, Sahin, Downing; Pacheco, Yesil
Pretty much the team I predicted apart from Wilson ahead of Coates. Obviously with Agger injured Coates is too important for this game. I wonder if there is a chance Wilson might jump ahead of Carra in the pecking order. I'd imagine Wilson is getting picked ahead of Sama because of his greater experience. Wilson has been around the first-team squad far more, played games for Liverpool, Rangers and Scotland. By contrast the highest level Sama has played at is international U19 football. In the longer term it's hard to see Wilson having a future at the club but with the relative lack of experience I can see the sense in him playing here with Kelly and Agger injured.
Would love to see N'Goo and McLaughlin somewhere in the squad.
McLaughlin is only back from an injury and is somewhat hampered by having Johnson, Kelly, Wisdom, Flanagan ahead of him in the pecking order in his preferred right-back position. I would be surprised if we see McLaughlin feature for the first-team this season (he's still only 17)
N'goo is a bit more of a mystery given his recent goal-scoring form. However he still seems to be behind Yesil and Morgan in the young striker pecking order. I was wondering if it's possible that he is kinda the opposite of a system player. Its hard to see both Morgan and N'goo on the bench
I don't think we can say on the basis of that lineup that Suso is a first 11 player now.
I would say him being on the bench would be far more about giving Downing, Pacheco and Assaidi game time to see if they can perform to a level put pressure on the first-team players like Sterling, Shelvey, Borini.
I think Suso's appearance as a sub the last day was far more about tactically rejigging things than giving an indication of where he is in the overall pecking order - worth remembering that is was Borini he replaced. His performance will have done him no harm but I think it's more accurate to class him as a player who is a fringe squad player with (Downing, Pacheco, Assaidi) as opposed to being a first-teamer or there abouts (Suarez, Sterling, Borini, Shelvey) I doubt he is being rested to start against Norwich and would be very suprised if he was more than a sub.
Well my line of thinking is that I want to stay in / win the cup. Norwich - even though we desperately need a league win right now - are a team that I'm convinced we can beat with our second string if required. So if rest time is needed for some players, then in an ideal world, I'd prefer it to be against them. Obviously the key issue is if the ones who played Sunday have had sufficient recovery time. Probably not is the answer to that (which makes your concerns 100% valid) but it's a calculated risk we might have to take in order to stay in the competition. I guess BR will have to assess each player and make a call....will be interesting to see what he does though.
I think it's more complex than just balancing against the Norwich game. It's about squad management for the whole of the season. We will have to rely on "fringe" players during the season and its far better to have them getting some competitive game-time. What sort of message would Rodgers be sending if he picked a first-eleven in terms of competition for places?
As it is, selecting fringe players gives them game time and a chance to put pressure on in terms of competition for first-team places. If any of Wilson, Robinson, Wisdom, Henderson, Sahin, Downing, Assaidi, Pacheco, Yesil have a good performance it means that there is more competition on first-team (starting and squad) places, which benefits everyone.
There are an awful lot of games left in the season and its worth remembering that a lot of our squad didnt have a full summer break between the Euros, Olympics and even the Euro U19s. I'd imagine a key consideration in resting senior players is making sure we don't pick up injuries at the back-end of the season in March, April, May when having senior players fit could be key.
We could play a first-team but we increase the likelihood of picking up injuries to first-teamers and then we would be relying on bringing in players who had little or no competitive gametime to replace them.
With Kelly injured for the season
and Agger injured, our current 3rd choice CB is Carra who has been performing very poorly, not to mention being 34 years of age has to be considered an injury risk. So far this season Wilson has had little to no game-time. It's not unlikely that Agger will pick up a knock again at some stage given his injury record.
Imagine a situation where Carra picks up an injury for instance (not exactly unlikely given his age) This would mean our 5th choice would be the sub centre-back. We have a high volume of games with the Europa League, the two cups not to mention the league. It's also worth remembering the number of our players who are likely to feature during international weeks and thus will be travelling as opposed to having a mini-break then. Last international break there was 20 players involved in international games. Compare this to some of the other sides in the league who don't have anything like the same number involved in internationals. They can spend the international breaks relaxing and working in match tactics whereas Liverpool's players are traipsing around picking up the air-miles.
Overall the logic in going with a weaker squad for this game makes the most sense. We don't have the squad to realistically compete in 4 competitions and this has to be assigned the lowest overall priority. In a sense we were somewhat unlucky to get a premier league side this early in the competition. However hopefully this is balance out by favourable draws in the FA Cup and the Europa knock-out stages.
