Will We See Rotation Against Cardiff?

FOLLOWING the spectacular – if unexpected – demolition of Tottenham in their own house last Sunday, we’ve had what can pretty much only be described as an outpouring of joy, happiness and optimism from Liverpool fans over the last few days.

It’s been some time since we’ve been able to feel that way. This isn’t just optimism from a great win, it’s optimism that things are on the turn; that Liverpool look like they may be pushing themselves out of the huge plateau of disappointment that they’ve occupied since Rafa Benitez’s final season.

The ‘Desolation of Spurs’ would probably make a pretty good return if it was released in cinemas around the city but now the time has come to move on, we’re not a club for dwelling too long on big wins and it’s time to start looking to the next fixtures over Christmas.

Ordinarily, I’d be all for ‘one game at a time’ but with 3 fixtures in quick succession between Saturday and the weekend following, it’s impossible to not look at the three as almost being some kind of twisted mini-competition, because whoever comes out of the Christmas period with most points tends to kick off the new year in the healthiest position.

But what begins with a fairly rudimentary home game against 15^th place Cardiff City on Saturday morning is swiftly followed by two away games against Manchester City on Thursday (Boxing Day) and then away at Chelsea less than 48 hours later.

Beating Spurs so heavily (not to mention comfortably) will send us in to this run of games with much greater confidence, and another heavy win against the Welsh side will only give us a further kick before our toughest game of the season so far, and then a game against our very recent, bitter rivals.

Manager Brendan Rodgers is going to have to manage his small squad very carefully over this run. While I wrote earlier in the week that there’s no reason we can’t challenge for higher than 4^th that doesn’t mean our squad will come through tough runs unscathed.

On the face of it, our first-choice 11 should be able to cope with Cardiff and then City, as both sides will have played during the same period, but with Chelsea following so soon after, we just don’t have the same depth of squad to switch things up and still maintain the performance levels we saw on Sunday.

So it may be a case of making a few changes on Saturday, perhaps resting one or two players, and hopefully taking a few more off from a winning position. The question is, who? Luckily, we have Toure, Agger and Kelly all capable of filling in at the back and making it so that we don’t really notice the changes.

However, the problems come further forward, once you move into midfield. I mean, I’d really like to rest Lucas and Henderson (given that Allen is only recently recovered from injury, and is less likely to need a break) but who do you bring in for them? With Gerrard injured, we’re left with no real true midfielders.

We’ve a fair few wide players and – God forbid – if we lost Sterling, Coutinho or Suarez we’d be able to turn to Moses, Aspas or Alberto but in the middle of the park we’re at a bit of a loss for straight replacements.

He may even choose to see how far the midfield three can go before beginning to tire or perhaps, as I said, he’ll opt to start all three in every game whilst hoping we’re in a position to withdraw them mid-way through the second half. Even against Cardiff, that would be a huge help.

It’s going to be a tough call for Rodgers but I’m sure he’s got plans drawn up for how to cope with the Christmas period, I just wouldn’t want to be in his position as depending on how he chooses to manage his squad over the next 10 days, we may well be looking down from position of dominance, or wondering where it all went so wrong.