This Saturday’s amble finds me going round in circles – even more so than usual. Rotation is with us, nice and early for Christmas and it’s as nasty as ever. Gather round, we can get through this together…
Suddenly it’s all about rotation and for once, it’s not Rafa’s name we’re cursing. Indeed lets start with Ferguson. First off, he confirmed that, although Van der Sar was likely to return against Hull today having been rested in midweek, he indicated that this policy of resting his number one, would continue.
“Managing Edwin to keep him fresh is important….It’s also important we give experience to Tomasz Kuszczak and Ben Foster. I’ll be rotating them as the season goes on”.
The message is clear there then: Van der Sar is now a risk and must surely slip below Cech and Reina in the rankings when it comes to the “big three” keepers.
Up front, Ferguson has even more “concerns” For the last couple of days the Tevez situation has been his hot topic. He rested Rooney against West Ham on Wednesday and has revealed the he had a heart-to-heart with the striker before doing so…
“I sat down with Wayne the other day and explained that I needed to find out how Berbatov and Tevez played together, and he understood that. But I don’t think he’d like to be left out for two or three games! Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s unmanageable.”
Ferguson then goes on to hint that, after the “unpredictable” performance from Tevez, he may persevere with his partnership with Berbatov today, perhaps with the idea of recalling Rooney for Champions League action…
“I wanted to see how the combination of Berbatov and Tevez was together. But Carlos was so wound up to do well himself that they became two different parts,” admitted the boss. “I think they’ll be far better on Saturday – if I pick them.”
Last night reports surfaced in the Mail, stressing that while Tevez was happy to prolong his stay and make his move from United permanent, he was not enjoying this current season and the competition for places…
‘This season is proving more complicated than any other and it is difficult for me to get in the team. The competition with Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov is intense,” he added.
The Mail article also hints that Tevez could start again today with Maradona likely to be in the stands under his new remit as Argentina coach. That all points to another rest for Rooney today and a growing concern for fantasy managers that the United forward line will suffer multiple changes throughout the season. I’d advise caution for Rooney owners today, particularly if you’re contemplating handing him the FPL captaincy.
Wenger is another manager with great riches up front and the options to rotate them. He has previously stated that he will operate a rotation policy, particularly with Van Persie and Adebayor and fantasy managers have to consider that the policy could rear its head again for the visit to Stoke. Indeed, Wenger has all but confirmed that he will rotate for this game in some areas of his lineup.
According to Wenger we can expect a “little bit” of rotation with Wednesday’s Champions League game and the clash with United next weekend, in mind. Wenger then went on to offer some interesting insight into how he approaches resting players.
“First of all you look at the positions in the team where people have to put more mental or physical effort in,” stated the Arsenal boss.
“Then you look at the capacity of the players to repeat, the players who are injury prone more than others. There is a lot of things coming in to your mind when you make these kind of decisions. How much has been given in the last game, all that.”
One name springs to mind when you hear Wenger assessing those “who are more injury prone”: Van Persie. It seems likely then that the Dutchman will miss out at least one of the next three games. Surely United next weekend won’t be one of them – leaving today against Stoke and Wednesday’s home game with Fenerbahce.
So will Wenger rest Van Persie today? I wasn’t so sure, but then I started reading reports on how Stoke plan to beat up Arsenal and changed my mind somewhat. Here’s some heart-warming words from Stoke and ex-Bolton defender Abdoulaye Faye….
“They don’t like it physical and they have a big problem dealing with it. It was always part of our plan at Bolton to make it physical against Arsenal and it will be the same today.” Shudder.
I think Wenger will bring in some added muscle at Stoke today. That will mean recalls for Song and Toure and I can see Diaby getting a start too. As for Van Persie – yeah, I’m going to commit and say I think he’ll sit this one out with Bendtner coming in to help with the battering and set play assault.
Long term then, like Rooney, it appears that Van Persie will have the threat of rotation hanging over him – in addition to the risk of injury that we know is likely to materialise again at least once this season.
Still on the subject of rotation; another manager who could cause us a few problems is the previously predictable Martin O’Neill. He caused more than a few frowns when he left out both Luke Young and Shorey recently and only yesterday was indicating that his rotation policy will have to continue as Villa enter a busy period of the season.
That could start on Sunday, with Sidwell a contended to come into the midfield for the injured Petrov. Sidwell himself will need a fitness test according to reports but I’d expect him to get a game. We might well see Davies replace Cuellar at centre back too. Carew should return which is likely to see Milner drop out – we can only hope that both Agbonlahor and Ashley Young are untouchable, although time will tell.
Looking at my own fantasy lineups today, and in the FPL, I’m probably going to gamble on benching Zaki in order to put my money where my mouth is on Bendtner. It will probably backfire spectacularly (benching Zaki has in the past) but I’m going to gamble on the FPL auto subs taking care of things should the likes of Bendtner, Alonso, Agger or Ireland not start over the weekend. Given Wigan’s form and lack of recent service to Zaki, plus the fact that I’ve got Traore in my defence, I’m going to risk it.
As always – this is not advice I would endorse, merely my own thoughts on the situation with my fantasy team. Don’t go selling Zaki off the back of it – you’ll regret that. And as a footnote- I’ve benched Zaki twice this season and he’s scored 4 goals an assist and 3 bonus points in those games. I’ve chosen not to ignore logic and common sense to make my fantasy weekend that little bit more risque – I don’t recommend you do.
Things only need to stabilised with my Guardian team – and it will probably be a 5-4-1 from me for today’s fixtures – given the traditional returns from strikers in that game.
I’ll leave you with some late team news. United’s Wes Brown is out with a knock to his ankle so Neville looks set to start later today. For Spurs meanwhile, Jenas has a toe injury but is expected to pull through. While Mido and Hoyte have both returned to training and could feature, albeit from the bench, against West Ham. As always, the team news is collated here for you and has had a pass this morning.
Once again, I wish you all good luck and another profitable fantasy weekend.