I was thinking about this when doing the ratings for the Spartak game, in which the likes of Can, Firmino, Wijnaldum, Sturridge and Karius (although maybe "rotating players" is a separate debate), all gave the sort of display that made me immediately think they should in no way start the next game.
But is there any real point in it?
Take Firmino. He's been fucking dreadful for weeks, and hasn't scored a goal since August. Now, it's not as if anyone expects him to score many, but his last few displays have been so poor that immediately everyone is talking about dropping him for Solanke (it was Sturridge, until he came on against Spartak and was horrible).
But really, why should he be dropped? What will that achieve? If he carries on being picked, there's little doubt he will eventually score again, and play better than he has for the past month. He might even have one of his annual purple patches and score 4 goals in a month or something crazy.
Dropping him will only delay that, because he's inevitably going to get picked again. So what's the point? It would perhaps be different if he was dropped for a better striker, but amazingly we don't seem sure we actually have one (but that outrageous fact is for another thread). It's the same with Lovren, or Wijanldum, or many other players we have.
Yeah, they can have very good games, and their fans start quacking loudly with the "I told you so! I've always loved him!" bollocks. We all do it. And before long they'll have a series of fucking awful games, the criticism comes back, and they get dropped for a while. Rinse. Repeat.
I do understand resting/ rotating players when the playing schedule is heavy, and allowing younger players time to calibrate and ease into the team more slowly, but the idea that dropping poorly-performing players has a benefit is a bit strange.
It's a bit like when some mediocre manager (Pardew is one of my favourite examples) is praised after his teams come out of a slump, and somehow his methods have started working again, and they've "come through it"
No they haven't. They'll be in a slump again, because he's a shit manager and the team isn't very good, and eventually he'll get sacked.
So that's the point. There's no benefit in dropping a player in a slump, because eventually they will play better again, before another slump. And why? Because they're fundamentally not good enough, and if you need to drop a player, what it actually almost always means is that they're never going to play consistently well enough and therefore should be replaced.
Really good players don't get dropped often, because they're really good players and play really well almost all the time.
So let's not drop players. It's fucking pointless. Let's get better ones.
But is there any real point in it?
Take Firmino. He's been fucking dreadful for weeks, and hasn't scored a goal since August. Now, it's not as if anyone expects him to score many, but his last few displays have been so poor that immediately everyone is talking about dropping him for Solanke (it was Sturridge, until he came on against Spartak and was horrible).
But really, why should he be dropped? What will that achieve? If he carries on being picked, there's little doubt he will eventually score again, and play better than he has for the past month. He might even have one of his annual purple patches and score 4 goals in a month or something crazy.
Dropping him will only delay that, because he's inevitably going to get picked again. So what's the point? It would perhaps be different if he was dropped for a better striker, but amazingly we don't seem sure we actually have one (but that outrageous fact is for another thread). It's the same with Lovren, or Wijanldum, or many other players we have.
Yeah, they can have very good games, and their fans start quacking loudly with the "I told you so! I've always loved him!" bollocks. We all do it. And before long they'll have a series of fucking awful games, the criticism comes back, and they get dropped for a while. Rinse. Repeat.
I do understand resting/ rotating players when the playing schedule is heavy, and allowing younger players time to calibrate and ease into the team more slowly, but the idea that dropping poorly-performing players has a benefit is a bit strange.
It's a bit like when some mediocre manager (Pardew is one of my favourite examples) is praised after his teams come out of a slump, and somehow his methods have started working again, and they've "come through it"
No they haven't. They'll be in a slump again, because he's a shit manager and the team isn't very good, and eventually he'll get sacked.
So that's the point. There's no benefit in dropping a player in a slump, because eventually they will play better again, before another slump. And why? Because they're fundamentally not good enough, and if you need to drop a player, what it actually almost always means is that they're never going to play consistently well enough and therefore should be replaced.
Really good players don't get dropped often, because they're really good players and play really well almost all the time.
So let's not drop players. It's fucking pointless. Let's get better ones.
