Claudius We all accept that, it's normal. Arteta is the one that refuses to accept rotation, and our fans let him off the hook every year with reasoning like this "top players play 38 games".
Van Dijk has played 35, and we all get that, and stars should, the league is were it's at. But the difference when it comes to Arteta and other managers is that Van Dijk played his first League Cup game of the season in the semi first leg, he was not even on the bench until then. When the semi came around for us, Saliba already had 2 full games played in the League Cup vs Preston and Palace. Gabriel came off the bench vs Bolton and vs Palace. Same for the FA Cup, and yes, we had a better opponent, but like I said let's not just pretend Arteta did not play them vs Bolton, and it's not a thing that happened this year, it happens every year. So Liverpool played 2 games in the Fa Cup, Van Dijk got 0 minutes, we played 1 game , Saliba - Gabriel got 120.
Same goes for the CL, when Liverpool were done with the group stages, Van Dijk was not even in the squad in the last game. Gabriel played the last game, hell we won the first PSV leg 7-1 and he still started Gabriel in the return leg.
And the thing is, we have decent back up when it comes to defenders. And he does that every year, I remember Gabriel, ESR, Xhaka and almost all the first team players starting in the League Cup vs fucking Oxford a few years ago. And then we fall on our face in april, we run out of gas, and we wander what happened? Our players are not like the other top players, they cannot handle it. They are man, the manager is not.
I looked it up for the players CPM mentioned vs our counter parts.
Gravanberch vs Rice, same thing. By the time Gravanberch played his first League Cup in the semi, Rice had already started vs fucking Bolton....and played almost the full game. Same for the FA Cup, the Liverpool player got 2 weeks off, Rice started. Same for the CL, the Liverpool player was not in the squad once they were done with the group stage, Rice played the last game vs Girona and the return leg when we were 6 goals up.
Salah is the only one that gets game time in the League cup, but 10 minutes per game before the semi. Saka starts our first game vs Bolton...we cannot compare the FA Cup as Saka was already injured, but worth mentioning that Salah did not get 1 sec and of course got time off the CL as well.
Since day 1 he refused to rotate, and 6 years later he learned nothing. In the first title fight, Saliba and our season got fucked in the Sporting game, we had no business going for the Europa League as well that year, with the chance we had in the league and the small squad....yet he did not give them a second of rest. We ended up fighting for the title with Holding in defence lol. He did the same thing with Partey in the season we went for Top 4, and we fucked that up.
I just wanted to put this out there, as I see it a lot. We get it that they play a lot in the league, but there are ways, like I said, to give them rest. 2 weeks off in January when the FA Cup comes around is huge for players. Ours never dream of that. We kept hearing all year that Saka is in the red with his hamstring, and he plays vs Preston in the league cup and never gets subbed off in the league, then does his hamstring and we go "how un lucky", nah, not unlucky, the word we are looking for is dumb. Same goes for Gabriel and Havertz.
And he does not seem capable of change, just a strange guy...likes to hoard players, but god forbid he plays them.
