Criticism of Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool Team Selection Misses the Point Entirely

It is the morning after Brendan Rodgers chose to make wholesale changes to a team that has struggled, and in some cases failed, to beat Queens Park Rangers, Hull City, Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion in the last month.

The side that he chose to do a certain job (nullify the attacking talents of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, James Rodriguez, Isco and co.) did that exact job.

Yet Rodgers is a man under fire from certain areas of the media and sections of Liverpool's support.

In some cases, the knives are well are truly out. Rodgers' team selection has been called "embarrassing" by Jim Boardman, writing for The Mirror. Frankly, Liverpool's performances at Newcastle and QPR recently have been quite embarrassing. So actually, to make such bold changes was brave, and justified.

Rodgers has never shirked big decisions—see Pepe Reina and Andy Carroll leaving the club as two prime examples—and he has made another big one this week. That's what top managers are paid to do.

For the record, Rodgers wasn't treating the competition with disdain, he was working with the best interests of the Football Club in mind. Looking at the bigger picture rather than one game in isolation.

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This wasn't a one-off cup match, that's what people are struggling to realise here. Yes, anyone can beat anyone, but looking at it pragmatically, Rodgers was right to make the changes he did. He knew that the chances of his supposed strongest XI—a team woefully out of form and looking extremely tired due to a run of seven games in 21 days—getting a result against a team of Madrid's calibre, was slim. That and that, even with defeat, progress from the group still lies in his team's own hands.

What's funny is how pre-match talk of Liverpool being on the receiving end of quite a hammering, even before the reports of wholesale changes were mooted, has now changed to an agenda about how they could have somehow got something from the game. You can't have it both ways.

Truth is, Liverpool's supposed best XI wouldn't have performed as those who started last night did. They wouldn't have been so disciplined and suffocated Real Madrid's galacticos. Instead we'd be sat here now talking about another defeat and not the positives that have arisen from the match in that a) key players have been rested, b) squad players took an opportunity to shine, and c) key players may have been given a proverbial kick up the backside. 

Lineker

One of the most vocal criticisms of Rodgers has come from Match of the Day host Gary Lineker, who wrote pre-match that "Selecting a weakened side in Europe's premier competition, especially against Real Madrid, is unbefitting of a club of Liverpool's stature."

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Perhaps a valid point but it's one which is purely emotional and not at all pragmatic nor contextualised—which seems to be the thing all the complainants are struggling to work out here: How Rodgers is actually seeking the best overall strategy and looking at the bigger picture rather than just one single game in isolation.

“Gary is a figure I respect, he has been a top player, but he has never been a manager so he does not know what you’re up against with planning and training," responded Rodgers when asked about Lineker's comments post-match (as per The Guardian).

A fair response from the Liverpool boss. Not that Lineker can see it that way.

"Ah, the old 'he's never been a manager' line," responded Lineker on Twitter this morning. "Funny they never use that one when you're being complimentary."

Yes Gary, because Rodgers isn't asked for his views on your comments when you or anyone else is being complimentary. You'd think, for somebody working in the media, you'd know how the media works.

Heritage and Traditions

There's much talk in the post-match reactions, such as The Telegraph's Henry Winter, of Rodgers trampling on Liverpool's European heritage.

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What would be far more damaging to Liverpool FC is the football club not even being in Europe's elite competition next season, not losing a single game in the competition this year.

By doing what he has done, Rodgers has prioritised being in the competition next season, rather than possibly getting a miracle result against the best team in the world.

The truth of the matter is that if Liverpool fail to progress from their group, it will be because the "first XI" lost in Basel or not beating Basel and Ludogorets in the final two games—not because they didn't get a result in the Bernabeu against the best assembled attacking team in world football.

As Paul Hayward correctly writes in The Telegraph: "The Liverpool B team fared better in Madrid than the A team did at Anfield."