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During his formative years as a manager back in his native Spain, Newcastle United boss Rafa Benitez was labelled a ‘smart Alec’ due to his revolutionary ideas.

In fact, one common cliché which was often used against him was that “you might as well experiment with lemonade”.

In England, Benitez was also ridiculed for his squad-rotation policy because it was an almost alien concept at the time.

The United boss was one of the first managers ever to bring the word “rotation” to the public attention - in both Spain and England - and has been roundly criticised for it.

At Chelsea, this was one of the many things which Blues fans held against him; even while he was at Liverpool, Reds supporters and pundits alike could be heard complaining about Benitez’s decision to constantly tinker with his first-team line-up.

It may have been Claudio Ranieri who was nicknamed ‘The Tinkerman’ at Chelsea, but that would perhaps be a more adequate title for Benitez.

Newcastle fans can expect to see the Spaniard rotate his squad this season, and there is sound logic behind this - despite all the criticism.

In Rafa’s own words

Writing in his own book, ‘Champions League dreams’, Benitez passionately defends squad rotation.

“It is crucial, particularly in a competition like the Champions League, where the standard is so high and the opponents so dangerous, that a team retains its focus until the very last kick,” he writes.

“This is where rotation, another concept so roundly scorned in England, can be very useful.

“By drafting in players who are competing for their place, a manager can ensure his team has the intensity needed to win these games.

“It can keep everyone in the team on their toes.”

Complacency is not something which Benitez will accept and so players are shifted around continuously.

For Benitez, it’s about having a squad, and not just a first XI.

In modern football, the work schedule is relentless and Benitez realises this.

There is a saturated fixture schedule, teams are travelling long distances on a regular basis, players regularly get called up for international football, and no longer is it advisable for players to take to the field with minor injuries as they might have done in the past.

“It’s not possible to play 60 to 65 games, 100 per cent fit,” Benitez said back in 2007.

“It is impossible now with the tempo and the football.

“People talk about 20, 30, 50 years ago but it’s different now.

“After you finish a game you might need to fly to another country to play another really, really important game, and then come back a few days later to play another important game against a tough team, with a lot of physical contact.

“It’s not a big difference if you change a full-back for another one if he knows what to do.

“If you have a big-name [player] of course you can lose something but if the big name is tired then he’s not 100 per cent fit and it’s better to use another member of the squad.”

Critics often refer to the Liverpool side of the 1970s and 1980s and argue they did not rotate regularly, but as will be explained later, football has moved on dramatically since then.

Three key reasons why

Francisco de Miguel Moreno - Benitez’s fitness coach and right-hand man at Liverpool, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Napoli, Real Madrid and now Newcastle - is a disciple of Benitez’s squad-rotation philosophy.

He believes there are three key reasons why squad rotation is vital.

First of all, rotation prevents players from overloading the number of minutes they play - and this in turn lessens the risk of injury.

Second, playing two or three games in a week leads to a decrease in physical performance, especially in high-intensity scenarios like modern-day football matches, but rotation dilutes this.

Benitez’s Liverpool sides between 2005 and 2010 ran an average of 11.5km each per match.

Players in the 1950s and 1960s would cover roughly 5.5km each on average, and even in the 1990s it was just 10.8km; football, and the workload involved, has progressed immeasurably.

Finally, just as Benitez explained himself, rotation creates competition within the squad and prevents players from resting on their laurels.

“No player is indispensable”

A phrase which Benitez used during his time at Valencia was the following: “No player is indispensable, although some are more important than others.”

With the exception of the goalkeeper, nobody is ‘undroppable’ in a Benitez side.

Even then, Benitez was an early pioneer of playing one ‘keeper in the league, and another in the cups; Barcelona may do it now, but Benitez did it more than a decade ago.

At Valencia, Benitez used Fabio Canizares in La Liga, while Andres Palop played in the Copa del Rey and UEFA Cup.

But, on the whole, very few outfield players have ever made it into the ‘undroppable’ bracket under Benitez.

In fact, the Spaniard believes his first-ever trophy - the Spanish league title with Valencia in 2001/02 - came about because of squad rotation.

“In my first year at Valencia we won La Liga, beating Real Madrid, Barcelona, Deportivo [La Coruna] and Atletico Madrid,” Benitez once explained.

“In January we were eight points behind Real Madrid and we finished six or seven points ahead.

“Why? Because we were fresh at the end of the season.

“In the last two or three months we were really, really fresh and we were playing at another level.”

On the day Valencia won the league title in 2003/04, Ruben Baraja and Pablo Aimar - two of the most-important members of the squad, and the club’s star names - were left warming up on the sidelines as substitutes.

That match against Sevilla was crucial, but Benitez has already decided weeks in advance how he was going to rotate his players to keep them fresh, so Baraja and Aimar were left on the bench so they could be ready for a UEFA Cup tie a few days later.

Benitez the pioneer - but exalted company followed suit

It is Benitez who is so often criticised for squad rotation, but plenty of other world-renowned managers - including some of the very best in history - have followed his lead.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United won the Premier League and the Champions League in 2007/08 without ever playing the same XI in consecutive matches.

What’s more, Pep Guardiola made an average of five changes per game to his starting Barcelona line-up during the all-conquering, treble-winning campaign of 2008/09.

Newcastle the anomaly - but that’s unlikely to last for long

Somewhat surprisingly, Benitez barely rotated his United side during the final half-a-dozen games of the season when the Magpies went unbeaten.

In fact, following the 1-1 draw with Manchester City, Benitez named an unchanged side against Liverpool - the first time he had done so in 102 Premier League matches.

That was merely pragmatic, however.

Benitez only had 10 games with the players, and he believed he had found a successful formula so did not want to tinker much with his side.

For the short term, it made sense to stick with his first team - particularly given that he had a squad lacking in depth at Newcastle.

That’s something he is looking to address with his transfer activity this summer.

Newcastle will play a minimum of 48 domestic games - 46 in the Championship and at least two cup matches - and Benitez wants a squad which can abide through the toils of a relentless campaign.

The second tier is an endurance test, and Benitez will use rotation - from what he hopes will be a deep squad filled with quality - in order to pass it, and also hopefully rectify United’s chronic injury problems which have plagued the club for years.

He may be roundly criticised for squad rotation, but the philosophy has sound logic behind it.