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TOMKINS: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Paul Tomkins 30 October 2007
There's one thing in particular that's been costing Liverpool this season. Of course, I'll get onto the dreaded 'r' word in a minute. But that's not what I'm referring to.
Injuries to key 'spine' players –– Gerrard, Carragher, Agger, Alonso and Torres –– have been cropping up all season long. Not only have they missed games, but there's the loss of form and/or sharpness that the absence costs them upon their return.
Are these excuses? No. They are valid reasons, extenuating circumstances. Every team has to cope with injuries, but it's rare that they excel without clutches of their most important players for weeks or months at a time. There are some talents that a manager cannot easily replace. It was hard enough finding one of Torres' ilk, you simply can't have a spare lying around.
Also, it's one thing very occasionally resting a player like this in a game in which the rest of the team should be able to cope, but another to have a collection of top-class players not even available to choose from. Most of the injured players have been the ones Benítez rarely rotates, as well as many of the club's best passers.
Perhaps because he is seen in the media as excessively rotating his team, it seems there is no sympathy (like that afforded Chelsea last season when missing Terry and Cech) for Benítez when he's missing his major players. This is daft.
In the trial that never ends, Rafa, with his rotation policy, stands eternally accused.
Over the past couple of years I've given plenty of reasons why I think the criticism of rotation is wrong. But I think I've finally found the exact reason I loathe that criticism so much. And it has a lot to do with the legal system.
In the case of anyone accused of a serious crime, the defence does not need to prove anything. It is the prosecution which has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The defence simply needs to show that reasonable doubt exists.
A man (and his rotation policy) should be innocent unless proven guilty.
At least that would be the concept in a trial by law; a trial by media is something entirely different. No witnesses need to be called and evidence is not required –– just gut instincts, suspicions and suppositions. Innocent until proven guilty has no part in the media.
I am not necessarily trying to say that rotation is the only way to go. While I accept that a certain amount of rotation is essential in the modern game, I'm actually pretty ambivalent about the extent of it beyond that. It has pros and cons (as does the alternative), so to a large degree I can take it or leave it.
But given that Rafa has proven since 2001 that he's a supreme winner, I want him to use whatever methods he feels suit him. So I support him, even if I don't understand all of his decisions (just as none of us can understand all of any manager's decisions. It can be hard understanding anyone who knows more than you).
He's the world-class manager. Not me. It's pointless having a world-class manager and not letting him do things his own way.
If either he, or the next five or ten managers (assuming they were quality appointments), decided consistent team selections were the way to go, I'd support that too.
Not because I'm a Yes Man, but because it's pointless trying to make a top manager work in a way in which he doesn't believe, or forcing him to adhere to methods that are the antithesis of his philosophy (which will have been studiously developed over time, not constructed on some crazy whim.)
It's like a concert promoter booking the world's most famous singers for a global event, and then asking Frank Sinatra to sing like Kurt Cobain or vice versa. (Okay, so their best days are currently behind them, but you get my point.)
Both were great performers in their own way, but if you'd asked Sinatra to sing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' to grungy guitars and Cobain to croon 'It Was A Very Good Year', neither would be playing to his strengths. It wouldn't work.
The press, and some fans, have a terrible habit of telling top managers what to do. Often –– and this is what riles me –– it is not given as an opinion that accepts some humility, as in "I think it might be better...", but as stone cold fact.
Over the years when things weren't going so well, Wenger was told that, in order to succeed again, he needed to toughen up his fancy footballers; to introduce more English players who understand the Premiership; to stop over-passing; to go more direct, and introduce wingers who cross the ball; and so on. Alex Ferguson has been told to be less aggressive and stubborn, to not play kids, as well as instructed who to buy and sell, amongst other things.
These type of comments appear during the lean years, of which both men have had a few. Critics claimed both men had taken things as far as they could.
Over time both men have seen their styles evolve ever so slightly, but neither has eschewed the majority of the supposed "negative" aspects of their methodology or personality. If anything, Arsenal's current success is built on even fewer Englishmen –– with Cole and Campbell gone, Wenger has an entirely foreign team most weeks.
These men stick to what works for them –– but of course, it can't work every year, and often it doesn't work for years at a time.
Ferguson won nothing in his first four years, and no league title for his first six; then, more recently, won only an FA Cup and a League Cup between 2003 and 2007, and had only one good Champions League campaign in that time. Now it seems he can again do no wrong. Between 1998 and 2002 Arsene Wenger won nothing, and between 2004 and the present day has won only domestic cups. (Even the great Bill Shankly won nothing at all between 1966 and 1973.)
The situation Rafa inherited, the might of the rivals he has faced (in terms of money, and time in the job), and the insane pressure to land the Premiership title –– an increasingly impatient and irrational pressure that doesn't currently exist anywhere else in England –– make me believe that it is an almost impossible job in which to succeed outright.
The Liverpool job is currently the hardest in English football, mainly because of a decade and a half of league failure before Benítez arrived. He's spent some money this summer, but we're not even in winter yet.
Whomever he bought, whatever the tactics, and whether or not he rotated, he's been up against it. For me, Manchester United in 1989 is the only comparable situation. Ferguson had also been in the job three years, and he was battling a 20-year spell without the title. No wonder it took him six years to get it right. The difference is that Benítez had far more success in his first three years.
But Benítez's freedom to manage is being constantly questioned by a hysterical reaction to any team he selects.
From what I can see, there is no gung-ho pro-rotation lobby in the way there can seem a rabidly anti-rotation one; just those of us who are sick of the level of criticism it receives, much of it superficial and baseless.
The cycle did not start with people unduly praising rotation. No-one comes out of a game or switches off the TV when Liverpool have won and, in tones of awe, says "wow, did you see that rotating today? Amazing!" When you win a game with rotation, or indeed a sequence of games, no-one focuses on that.
The rotation debate started with people saying "rotation is rubbish" when Liverpool lost games, even if the result came about from bad refereeing, poor finishing, human error, or a freakish own goal.
Once Rafa stood accused, the council for the defence, of which I am a willing volunteer, stepped forward to ask the prosecution for proof that rotation definitely doesn't work. But have they done so? No.
However, I have seen plenty of things that hint that rotation, while not a guarantee of success, or indeed the only route to success, is far more prevalent in top teams than is generally perceived, and also that it gets results at a rate that, when you study the masses of results that I have, actually seems marginally more successful.
According to Oliver Anderson of The Football Review, last season there were 380 Premiership matches, which means 760 team line-ups. Only 83 of them were unchanged from the previous league game; 677 involved altered team-sheets.
When managers kept an unchanged team they on average won 37% of matches. Managers who made none, one or two changes to their line-ups also won 37%.
But managers who made between three and seven changes won 41% –– a fairly significant improvement. Indeed, mirroring the amount of unchanged line-ups, there were also 83 times when managers made four changes, and the win-rate then was over 42%. Compare that with the 83 times no changes were made, and tell me this stat is irrelevant? (Benítez also won far more points with four changes than with one, two or three changes.)
For rotation, or merely 'inconsistent team-sheets from week to week' (for whatever reason, be it injury, suspension or tactical manoeuvrings) to be the terrible thing it's portrayed as, I'd expect to see a massive disparity in the success rate between success and failure. I'd expect to see numbers leap out that show a manager simply must keep the same team every week.
Liverpool's best points tally for 18 years came about while the team was being rotated, at a time when the Reds still lacked an absolute top-quality striker like Torres.
And Rafa, so heavily criticised in the Iberian press for rotation during his time in Spain, won two league titles in three years. To me, that's proof that it can work –– or, at the very least, that rotation, if it is so terrible, didn't stop him succeeding with his overall methodology. And yet where is the proof that it definitely doesn't work?
There may have been occasions when rotation has cost us points. People can speculate all they like. But how do you prove that? How can you say for sure that, on any given day, any dropped points were the fault of rotation, or that another player would have done better had he played instead?
The only credible example anyone ever gives of rotation failing is Torres being omitted against Birmingham. With hindsight, Benítez may have opted to play Torres, but of course a manager can't call upon hindsight at the time. All the hue and cry over rotation for what, one single omission of one single player for (two-thirds of) one single game? –– and even then, there are no guarantees the result would have been better had Torres played.
Each of us might agree or disagree with Benítez on any of his team selections, whether he keeps it the same from the previous weeks or alters it, but there will be little consistency between our views, as we all rate certain players differently.
But the bedrocks of his side –– Reina, Carragher and Gerrard: the players we all agree should play as often as possible –– are rarely left out. In time, Torres, once he is fully settled, and Agger, once fit again, may fall into this category, while Alonso, Mascherano and Finnan are never far from the scene. Lucas and Babel are two outstanding prospects who may hold down regular places in time, but at just 20 and brand new to English football, they are being introduced more gradually. They need time.
So I rest my case for the defence. It's time to acquit Rafael Benítez, and allow him his freedom: the freedom to make the choices he feels are necessary to get Liverpool back to the top, whether it's this year or a little beyond.
Paul Tomkins 30 October 2007
There's one thing in particular that's been costing Liverpool this season. Of course, I'll get onto the dreaded 'r' word in a minute. But that's not what I'm referring to.
Injuries to key 'spine' players –– Gerrard, Carragher, Agger, Alonso and Torres –– have been cropping up all season long. Not only have they missed games, but there's the loss of form and/or sharpness that the absence costs them upon their return.
Are these excuses? No. They are valid reasons, extenuating circumstances. Every team has to cope with injuries, but it's rare that they excel without clutches of their most important players for weeks or months at a time. There are some talents that a manager cannot easily replace. It was hard enough finding one of Torres' ilk, you simply can't have a spare lying around.
Also, it's one thing very occasionally resting a player like this in a game in which the rest of the team should be able to cope, but another to have a collection of top-class players not even available to choose from. Most of the injured players have been the ones Benítez rarely rotates, as well as many of the club's best passers.
Perhaps because he is seen in the media as excessively rotating his team, it seems there is no sympathy (like that afforded Chelsea last season when missing Terry and Cech) for Benítez when he's missing his major players. This is daft.
In the trial that never ends, Rafa, with his rotation policy, stands eternally accused.
Over the past couple of years I've given plenty of reasons why I think the criticism of rotation is wrong. But I think I've finally found the exact reason I loathe that criticism so much. And it has a lot to do with the legal system.
In the case of anyone accused of a serious crime, the defence does not need to prove anything. It is the prosecution which has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The defence simply needs to show that reasonable doubt exists.
A man (and his rotation policy) should be innocent unless proven guilty.
At least that would be the concept in a trial by law; a trial by media is something entirely different. No witnesses need to be called and evidence is not required –– just gut instincts, suspicions and suppositions. Innocent until proven guilty has no part in the media.
I am not necessarily trying to say that rotation is the only way to go. While I accept that a certain amount of rotation is essential in the modern game, I'm actually pretty ambivalent about the extent of it beyond that. It has pros and cons (as does the alternative), so to a large degree I can take it or leave it.
But given that Rafa has proven since 2001 that he's a supreme winner, I want him to use whatever methods he feels suit him. So I support him, even if I don't understand all of his decisions (just as none of us can understand all of any manager's decisions. It can be hard understanding anyone who knows more than you).
He's the world-class manager. Not me. It's pointless having a world-class manager and not letting him do things his own way.
If either he, or the next five or ten managers (assuming they were quality appointments), decided consistent team selections were the way to go, I'd support that too.
Not because I'm a Yes Man, but because it's pointless trying to make a top manager work in a way in which he doesn't believe, or forcing him to adhere to methods that are the antithesis of his philosophy (which will have been studiously developed over time, not constructed on some crazy whim.)
It's like a concert promoter booking the world's most famous singers for a global event, and then asking Frank Sinatra to sing like Kurt Cobain or vice versa. (Okay, so their best days are currently behind them, but you get my point.)
Both were great performers in their own way, but if you'd asked Sinatra to sing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' to grungy guitars and Cobain to croon 'It Was A Very Good Year', neither would be playing to his strengths. It wouldn't work.
The press, and some fans, have a terrible habit of telling top managers what to do. Often –– and this is what riles me –– it is not given as an opinion that accepts some humility, as in "I think it might be better...", but as stone cold fact.
Over the years when things weren't going so well, Wenger was told that, in order to succeed again, he needed to toughen up his fancy footballers; to introduce more English players who understand the Premiership; to stop over-passing; to go more direct, and introduce wingers who cross the ball; and so on. Alex Ferguson has been told to be less aggressive and stubborn, to not play kids, as well as instructed who to buy and sell, amongst other things.
These type of comments appear during the lean years, of which both men have had a few. Critics claimed both men had taken things as far as they could.
Over time both men have seen their styles evolve ever so slightly, but neither has eschewed the majority of the supposed "negative" aspects of their methodology or personality. If anything, Arsenal's current success is built on even fewer Englishmen –– with Cole and Campbell gone, Wenger has an entirely foreign team most weeks.
These men stick to what works for them –– but of course, it can't work every year, and often it doesn't work for years at a time.
Ferguson won nothing in his first four years, and no league title for his first six; then, more recently, won only an FA Cup and a League Cup between 2003 and 2007, and had only one good Champions League campaign in that time. Now it seems he can again do no wrong. Between 1998 and 2002 Arsene Wenger won nothing, and between 2004 and the present day has won only domestic cups. (Even the great Bill Shankly won nothing at all between 1966 and 1973.)
The situation Rafa inherited, the might of the rivals he has faced (in terms of money, and time in the job), and the insane pressure to land the Premiership title –– an increasingly impatient and irrational pressure that doesn't currently exist anywhere else in England –– make me believe that it is an almost impossible job in which to succeed outright.
The Liverpool job is currently the hardest in English football, mainly because of a decade and a half of league failure before Benítez arrived. He's spent some money this summer, but we're not even in winter yet.
Whomever he bought, whatever the tactics, and whether or not he rotated, he's been up against it. For me, Manchester United in 1989 is the only comparable situation. Ferguson had also been in the job three years, and he was battling a 20-year spell without the title. No wonder it took him six years to get it right. The difference is that Benítez had far more success in his first three years.
But Benítez's freedom to manage is being constantly questioned by a hysterical reaction to any team he selects.
From what I can see, there is no gung-ho pro-rotation lobby in the way there can seem a rabidly anti-rotation one; just those of us who are sick of the level of criticism it receives, much of it superficial and baseless.
The cycle did not start with people unduly praising rotation. No-one comes out of a game or switches off the TV when Liverpool have won and, in tones of awe, says "wow, did you see that rotating today? Amazing!" When you win a game with rotation, or indeed a sequence of games, no-one focuses on that.
The rotation debate started with people saying "rotation is rubbish" when Liverpool lost games, even if the result came about from bad refereeing, poor finishing, human error, or a freakish own goal.
Once Rafa stood accused, the council for the defence, of which I am a willing volunteer, stepped forward to ask the prosecution for proof that rotation definitely doesn't work. But have they done so? No.
However, I have seen plenty of things that hint that rotation, while not a guarantee of success, or indeed the only route to success, is far more prevalent in top teams than is generally perceived, and also that it gets results at a rate that, when you study the masses of results that I have, actually seems marginally more successful.
According to Oliver Anderson of The Football Review, last season there were 380 Premiership matches, which means 760 team line-ups. Only 83 of them were unchanged from the previous league game; 677 involved altered team-sheets.
When managers kept an unchanged team they on average won 37% of matches. Managers who made none, one or two changes to their line-ups also won 37%.
But managers who made between three and seven changes won 41% –– a fairly significant improvement. Indeed, mirroring the amount of unchanged line-ups, there were also 83 times when managers made four changes, and the win-rate then was over 42%. Compare that with the 83 times no changes were made, and tell me this stat is irrelevant? (Benítez also won far more points with four changes than with one, two or three changes.)
For rotation, or merely 'inconsistent team-sheets from week to week' (for whatever reason, be it injury, suspension or tactical manoeuvrings) to be the terrible thing it's portrayed as, I'd expect to see a massive disparity in the success rate between success and failure. I'd expect to see numbers leap out that show a manager simply must keep the same team every week.
Liverpool's best points tally for 18 years came about while the team was being rotated, at a time when the Reds still lacked an absolute top-quality striker like Torres.
And Rafa, so heavily criticised in the Iberian press for rotation during his time in Spain, won two league titles in three years. To me, that's proof that it can work –– or, at the very least, that rotation, if it is so terrible, didn't stop him succeeding with his overall methodology. And yet where is the proof that it definitely doesn't work?
There may have been occasions when rotation has cost us points. People can speculate all they like. But how do you prove that? How can you say for sure that, on any given day, any dropped points were the fault of rotation, or that another player would have done better had he played instead?
The only credible example anyone ever gives of rotation failing is Torres being omitted against Birmingham. With hindsight, Benítez may have opted to play Torres, but of course a manager can't call upon hindsight at the time. All the hue and cry over rotation for what, one single omission of one single player for (two-thirds of) one single game? –– and even then, there are no guarantees the result would have been better had Torres played.
Each of us might agree or disagree with Benítez on any of his team selections, whether he keeps it the same from the previous weeks or alters it, but there will be little consistency between our views, as we all rate certain players differently.
But the bedrocks of his side –– Reina, Carragher and Gerrard: the players we all agree should play as often as possible –– are rarely left out. In time, Torres, once he is fully settled, and Agger, once fit again, may fall into this category, while Alonso, Mascherano and Finnan are never far from the scene. Lucas and Babel are two outstanding prospects who may hold down regular places in time, but at just 20 and brand new to English football, they are being introduced more gradually. They need time.
So I rest my case for the defence. It's time to acquit Rafael Benítez, and allow him his freedom: the freedom to make the choices he feels are necessary to get Liverpool back to the top, whether it's this year or a little beyond.