by Karthik Riian Mohan

Created on: June 02, 2009   Last Updated: June 03, 2009

As he strides along the touchline with his unmistakably chiseled stubble, Senor Rafael Benitez continues to baffle the football fraternity with his primitive adamant desire to pursue his much-maligned rotation policy.

In the complex world of football lies a distinctive rule of thumb successively advocated by the most distinguished teams in Europe: never change a winning team. However, this would be a football adage that Rafa would vehemently disagree with.

He has repeatedly played down accusations that his much controversial rotation policy has been the palpable catalyst for Liverpool's recent alarming dip of form.

There's isn't much need to critique Rafa's coaching capacity; he has repeatedly proved himself on the continental stage with his innate understanding of the game and tactical astuteness that has left Europe's most elite teams in tatters.

On the flipside of matters Rafa tends to have this misconception that rotation is an uncompromising necessity fundamental to the success of any football team. He constantly fails to understand that by rotating his players from a game to game basis, concreted solely on tactical reasoning, he is only disrupting the chemistry and understanding between his players.

His explanation is reasonable, design a game plan according to the opponent.

Unfortunately, this flies in the face of equally sensible ideas about playing your best performing team, letting them learn each other's game, and not over-thinking tactics and principles.

He often tries to rationalize his side of this ludicrous argument by throwing blame on the fixture congestion in the aftermath of international match-days for his side's insipid performances. The baffling notion here is that he tends to rotate even when the international fixtures are a good two or three weeks away. There is no question that rotation has to happen in the modern game, but tiredness doesn't affect players when they are winning, yet if you tell a player that he is tired, then he's bound to be.

It is all psychological. Benitez might have experienced monumental success during his tenure at Valencia through his persistent rotation policy but reality bites and the reality is that Liverpool are struggling to overcome minnow sides such as Birmingham and Wigan. The one trophy that everybody at Liverpool wants more than any other is the Premier League and that is why people will suddenly grasp any belief that this could be the year.

Liverpool started the season off promisingly substantiating

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