European Rotation Begins Early?

Friday afternoon saw the draws for both the UEFA Cup second qualifying round and the Champions League third qualifying rounds. All four Premiership clubs emerged with decent match-ups.

In the Champions League, Liverpool will take on Belgium’s Standard Liege, while Arsenal will face
Dutch side FC Twente. The UEFA Cup draw meanwhile saw Man City get themselves a home first leg with Danish club FC Midtjylland with Aston Villa facing up against Icelandic side, FH Hafnarfjardar.

The first legs of Champions League games wil take place on the 12-13 August, while Cty and Villa will play the first leg of their ties on Thursday August 14. Second legs for both competitions will follow a fortnight later.

European football can often see Premiership lineups exposed to rest and rotation, so let’s see how those dates and ties might influence the Premiership teamsheets.

For starters I think you can safely rule out any rotation for the first game of the season. It sems very unlikely that any of the four clubs involved will play weakened sides in the Premiership as a result of their European involvement. If anything, it seems more likely that the clubs will put weakened sides out for the first leg European ties. However, depending on results in those first leg ties, things could be different a week later as the clubs prepare for the second leg ties.

In the Champions League, Arsenal will hope to put the tie out of reach for the first leg in Holland before taking on FC Twente at home on Tuesday August 26. Before that game they travel to Fulham so if Wenger feels that Arseanl need a result at home on the Tuesday night, we could see some rotation at the Cottage the weekend before. Adebayor in particular, could be at risk with Bendtner perhaps handed an opportunity.

Liverpool meanwhile will be away at Liege for the first leg and will host Boro on August 23 before their home second leg. Again, like Arsenal, we have to hope that the tie is out of reach for the Belgian club otherwise it may well be that Rafa will exercise his dreaded rotation policy against Boro in order to prepare for the home tie.

It’s probably the back four that is most at risk with so many options open to Benitez. So, while I can’t quite see Rafa not starting with Torres or Gerrard against Boro, there is still the worry that both will have their output restricted by early substitutions should Liverpool get into the comfort zone with a 2-0 lead.

Ironically, both UEFA cup participants face each other immediately after the first leg of their ties – City travelling to Villa Park on Sunday August 17. City will host West Ham on the Sunday before the second leg away in Denmark while Villa will visit Stoke before their second leg. That is currently due to be in Iceland, although both clubs are looking to switch the venues for the ties so Villa could well be away first leg and host their opponents after the Stoke game two weeks later.

Neither City nor Villa appear to have the resources to allow either Hughes or O’Neill to rest players – that’s particularly true in Villa’s case. With that in mind, it looks likely that for now at least, rotation is not something we’ll have to worry about.

Things might all change after the first leg games though so I’ll revisit this issue again after we have the situations in the ties to consider.