It's the time of year when fatigue starts to affect many players due to the fast pace of the Premier League and the number of fixtures over the holiday period. This is why the big teams keep a large squad. If the reason Liverpool rotate so much is to ensure players stay fresh, the way they have played in their last three league games does not give any credence to the theory.

What this rotation policy seemed to achieve, however, is to make Liverpool players  look flustered and lacking in the cohesion that comes from regularly playing together. 

Watching Liverpool players successfully doing a one-two with each other to bypass opposing defenders is almost as rare as seeing John Arne Riise hitting a scorcher on target this season. What is it with Liverpool players this year? As professionals who are supposedly good enough to play for Liverpool they can't seem to be able to hit a target when they try shooting from far. I have given up hope of seeing players like Riise, Harry Kewell, Dirk Kuyt, Andriy Voronin, Xabi Alonso and even Steven Gerard hitting the target from distance. Do they even practise their shooting?

‘What this rotation policy seemed to achieve is to make Liverpool players look flustered and lacking in the cohesion that comes from regularly playing together.’


The first half of today's third round  FA Cup tie showed how even a struggling team like Luton can manage a one-two – their players seem to have some sort of telepathic understanding with each other – probably because they play together often enough.

Frankly, right now, the way Liverpool play, they do not resemble a team who can challenge for a trophy this year, never mind win the league. Why is it that whenever they have possession of the ball, especially from the back, they do not seem to have a clue how to pass it out of defence?

Every time they have the ball, they seem to take their sweet time to pass it. The play is lethargic and they  don't appear to know who to pass the ball to.

There seems to be no real attacking plan, no one-twos, not much attempt to catch opposing teams off guard. The aim is to belt the ball forward and hope Kuyt or Peter Crouch or Fernando Torres can get it. Many times it goes either directly to opposing players or is too high or too far from the Liverpool front men.

It is frustrating to watch and how many times do Liverpool expect captain Gerard to single-handedly take the game by the scruff of the neck, as he did against Derby? He almost did it again in the draw with Wigan.

Unless Liverpool can break this frustrating pattern, we can forget about seeing our team even get close enough to challenge for the league. They even got outplayed by Luton. What is that all about?

All I hope now is just that Liverpool coaches, at the very least, teach the players how to pass with pace, practise more one-twos and learn to shoot accurately. I am sure the rotation will never stop while Rafa Benitez is in charge but, for Pete's sake, get that basic things right.