RAFAEL BENITEZ is confident his rotation policy will cut down the number of injuries sustained by Newcastle United players this season.

With Massadio Haidara back on the training ground, Rolando Aarons is currently the only Newcastle player unavailable because of injury, and the winger’s setback could hardly have been avoided as he suffered a broken metatarsal in last month’s EFL Cup win over Cheltenham.

Benitez is an avowed advocate of squad rotation, and the Magpies manager is yet to name an unchanged starting line-up this season.

Last term, Middlesbrough boss Aitor Karanka attributed his side’s lack of long-term absentees to his willingness to rotate players during the Championship season, and Benitez is hoping his own policy will have similarly positive results.

The Spaniard is in constant contact with his medical team, and is adamant he will not risk anyone who is showing signs of fatigue on the training ground.

Benitez said: “We are trying to change some things. Part of it is to change players to give them more rest by rotating them. We don’t need to risk any players.

“The medical department work very hard and we have a new fitness coach, a new physio and we have a very good atmosphere between them. They are all working hard together, we try to manage the situation with them.

“Sometimes, when you have a player with a little problem, the doctor can tell you it is a risk so we can make sure we don’t take the risk and play someone else. If you push players then maybe they can get injured and we are trying to manage this.

“At the moment, it is working fine. During the game you can’t control it, like you see Rolando’s injury. Some of the injuries you can’t control. But if you can manage the load on the players, then you can keep them fitter.”

The depth of Newcastle’s squad was highlighted on Tuesday, with recent signings Daryl Murphy and Achraf Lazaar not even making the match-day 18 for the 6-0 win over QPR.

Benitez was able to successfully strengthen over the summer, but denies the size of the squad is out of kilter with the demands of a 46-game league season.

He said: “The squad is not big. If you analyse every single player we had last season, we had 31 - now we have 27 with (Freddie) Woodman and Haidara who will play for the Under-23s.

“What we have now is that the majority of them are fit because we have less injuries. The squad looks bigger because we have two players in each position, more or less.”