Wenger's rotation policy

Or the lack of it.

No one was rotated today, even Flamini came in for Wilshere only because of his injury.

It's not even the first time. Last season Wilshere and Diaby came back from injury STRAIGHT into the first team despite having other options. According to Szczesny's stupid dad, his son played many games with injuries aswell.

Does Wenger not trust his 'depth' players as much as he would like? Why doesn't he react and replace them with better players? If he does trust them, why not use them more often when you play likes of Crystal Palace, so you can give your better players some rest and let them be fresh for the next games? And one week of rest is not enough in midseason imo especially before such a hectic schedule ahead. Giroud had to start because we have no one else but Ramsey, Özil, Gibbs, Koscielny, Sagna could've been easily replaced without losing TOO much quality (enough to beat Crystal Palace).

It looks as if we have a starting XI, and some other players who only play when there's no other option at all, sometimes they don't play even when we have injuries lol

Against Chelsea we will surely see some more rotation, we might lose because the likes of Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Monreal, Gnabry, Bendtner rarely seem to play a football match together I don't care about the cup but winning against our rivals is always great despite the cup competition.

Anyway I hope I jinxed the Chelsea game enough and we beat them with Bendtner scoring a hattrick assisted by Viviano doing a 'run into the goal post' celebration!

C'mon Arsenal!

This frustrated greatly this morning when I saw the team. Several people were defending it by saying that we shouldn't under-estimate Palace and that it'd be too risky to rotate too much, but if you can't rotate against the team in 19th and without a manager, who can you rotate against?

It's not surprising as it's always been Wenger's way. Once he gets a winning eleven in place, he doesn't like to change it, even if some players are "jaded" and even if we actually have a good squad of players.  Sometimes that continuity can lead to a good run of results, but then sometimes you can clearly see that some players aren't 100%.

Wenger's least successful month in his entire tenure is November and when you look at his lack of rotation over the years, it's easy to see why. Players are supremely fit but after playing 15 or so games straight, some of which were in the space of two or three days, they're going to get tired and not play at their maximum.

I worry since the more these squad players stay on the bench, the less fit and less confident they're going to be when they eventually do get a game. Players thrive when they're trusted by their manager, but what kind of message does it send to the likes of Vermaelen or Monreal when you're not getting picked, even when players are tired?

There could be many reasons why we won't anything this season, but for me, a lack of rotation would be the biggest one.

will have to agree.. i dont remember we ever having a squad good enough to roatate in the last 3-4 years.. this is probably the first time, we have some options in the midfield..
and we are seeing some rotation.. Rosicky, Wilshere, Ramsey and Gnabry have taken turns to start.. PL is tough and i dont think we can take any team lightly.. we played with our best squad today and still looked average..
is it because they are tired.. not sure.. they are professionals.. does jaded stand to be a excuse ? 3 days rest should be enough for another 90 mins.. right ?

Some of bench players did have good play time, Tomas, Gnarby, Jenkinson. What bothers me is tv5 and Monreal sittuation, one was captain not long ago, plays regularly for NT; one has been solid whenever he's on. These two should have been on the field alot more than currently had.

Like Jay said. It's Wenger way, soon we will be hearing jaded excuse like other seasons. Ozil already looked out of gas last 2 game, really worry me sine the dude just joined.

You're topping the table, surely complaining about lack of rotation is a bit baseless then? "Don't change a winning team", they say.

Art Morte wrote:You're topping the table, surely complaining about lack of rotation is a bit baseless then? "Don't change a winning team", they say.

Yeah but then again if you actually watched the game, u will notice some of our players were really tired toward the end of the game. Some of our rotation players are real quality, they might not offer a 10 but a 8 might be helpful in long term. It's fine now cause we got the result but a bit or preparation for tough November can't be worse.

I watched the Palace game thanks to it being the early kick-off and I didn't notice a collapse in stamina. Özil, Giroud, Ramsey, Cazorla were still breaking up with speed on the counter numerous times towards the end of the match when Palace were pushing forward. Scored, too, you won, too. Sure some rotation needs to be done in a long season, but I don't think it's any sort of an issue for Arsenal yet. And sometimes it's too easy to just say a player was "tired" when they performed below their standard.

I think the main reason for concern amongst Gooners is the difficulty of our next 4-5 matches and how Wenger will cope with them.

Art Morte wrote:You're topping the table, surely complaining about lack of rotation is a bit baseless then? "Don't change a winning team", they say.

It won't be baseless when our best players get injured in midseason, a time when we play our harder games, we drop points because the "depth" players have rarely played together which results in having no chance of winning anything again by the time everyone comes back from injury. It's also easy hiding behind the table, forget the performances in the last few games and pretend everything is alright.

It's happened too often to us, play with the same players EVERY week, win a few games, players get injured, others come in but don't do well because they've played two games in months, lose games until we go out of all the competitions, players come back and secure top 4 finish.

No one can convince me that a team of Chesney, Jenkinson, Mertesacker/Koscielny, Vermaelen, Monreal, Flamini, Arteta, Gnabry, Rosicky, Cazorla, Giroud wouldn't have beaten Crystal Palace. Ramsey, Özil, Mertesacker/Koscielny, Gibbs, Sagna all fresh for Liverpool, Dortmund, United. These guys + Giroud have played almost every game this season in the league, CL + international, while the others have featured in Capital One Cup and a few internationals, of course injuries will happen.

Wenger kills player's fitness, it is known.

Unfortunately it's a vicious cycle. As Urban said, the benched players lose confidence and form and Wenger feels vindicated by it. So Tuesday, if we lose to Chelsea with a team that looks like this:

-----------------Fab/Viv
Jenk-------Verm-----BFG-------Monreal
-------------Wilshere---Hayden
Gnabry---------------Rozza----------Ryo
----------------Bendy

then Wenger will be less inclined to bench our starters when they could use the rest against teams that should be less challenging. And when the starters don't get that rest, they look ragged against 19th placed manager-less sides.

I agree, Rosicky, Monreal and Vermaelen should have all started yesterday

He rotates positions too. Ramsey in the form of his life, Wenger response? Play him right wing where he was awful last season  

1991 wrote:He rotates positions too. Ramsey in the form of his life, Wenger response? Play him right wing where he was awful last season  

he is doing very good now even in the wings.. it is to do with his form.. it is more imporant to play the best team than trying to give all players their best positions.. sometimes players need to sacrifice something for the good of the team..

1991 wrote:He rotates positions too. Ramsey in the form of his life, Wenger response? Play him right wing where he was awful last season  

We had no other option, we have no healthy wingers as you may know. The funny thing is he had some great games while on the wing.

Come out of this 10 game run on top and healthy and I would have to say Arsenal would be the favorites for the title.

Agree with Motogp, I don't expect to win most of these games but if we win/draw few of them AND have a healthy squad for the next run until February or so, I'll be very optimistic for our chances to win the title.

I doubt it though, remaining healthy means you have to rotate your team sometimes and if Wenger didn't have the balls to rotate against Crystal Palace then don't expect him to rotate against stronger opposition.