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Substitutions


Mogsy

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Why o why does Martinez seem to be so reluctant to use his bench??? Why buy Lennon and not bring him on, why when(if he does) bring on Kev does it happen so late? Kone is quite clearly knackered at the end of games why not sub him, isn't that the whole point of subs??? I don't get it! Please someone explain it to me!!!!!

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Roberto is pulling all the right levers with the starting squad, but his substitutions, or lack thereof, are bizarre. Mirallas and Kone should be splitting time at that position. I'd say 60 mins/30 mins and then the other two subs should be for players who just don't have it that day. But your point is well taken; I've got no idea what he's doing.

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He's obviously worried about consistency. But having a player (or 3) dead on their legs, consistency isn't the biggest problem.

 

Really needs to sort it out.

 

If he doesn't think they're good enough, why buy them (Lennon)?

It's strange isn't it. Seemed to have no problem last year changing a winning line up for no reason, and now doesn't want to change anything?

Defiantly does need to sort it out.

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I think he was afraid of upsetting the balance of a team that were attacking very well for most of the game. I annoyed me but yesterday it annoyed me less than usual, I could understand (to a degree) his reluctance to change the setup and when he did, he made a positive, attacking sub. Not his fault that the entire team then ignored Baines for the right side, and who could blame them since Geri was looking more and more dangerous with each attempt

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Kone had nothing in his legs, you could see that with the chance right at the end, he looked like he was on quicksand, thats not kones fault, everyone on here can see he is good for 60 mins max, he has bad knees and no doubt isnt able to do a full 90 at the effort levels he puts in.

 

If that chance fell to a fresh mirallas or naismaith it was a goal.

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I think he was afraid of upsetting the balance of a team that were attacking very well for most of the game. I annoyed me but yesterday it annoyed me less than usual, I could understand (to a degree) his reluctance to change the setup and when he did, he made a positive, attacking sub. Not his fault that the entire team then ignored Baines for the right side, and who could blame them since Geri was looking more and more dangerous with each attempt

Not like Mirallas and Lennon are strangers to playing good attacking football for us.

If supporters can see players on the pitch are out of it surely he can?

Edited by Deacs
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Not like Mirallas and Lennon are strangers to playing good attacking football for us.

If supporters can see players on the pitch are out of it surely he can?

I'm not excusing him mate, I just see where we was coming from yesterday. Mirallas would've been my choice, but it might've unbalanced the attack as much as it could've improved it. Roberto bottled it, but at least this time because he didn't want to interrupt us playing well.

Edited by Matt
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I'm not excusing him mate, I just see where we was coming from yesterday. Mirallas would've been my choice, but it might've unbalanced the attack as much as it could've improved it. Roberto bottled it, but at least this time because he didn't want to interrupt us playing well.

Totally agree with you here.

I was looking myself and thinking who could I change?

Lennon? Pace would be wastes against a team sitting back.

Mirralas? Gamble whether he can be arsed or not.

Naismith? Maybe..an industrious and brave player could have caused more havoc in the box.

 

But then when you saw how tired Kone was, we couldn't have really gone wrong changing him.

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Totally agree with you here.

I was looking myself and thinking who could I change?

Lennon? Pace would be wastes against a team sitting back.

Mirralas? Gamble whether he can be arsed or not.

Naismith? Maybe..an industrious and brave player could have caused more havoc in the box.

 

But then when you saw how tired Kone was, we couldn't have really gone wrong changing him.

That was my only frustration. Naismith would've been a like-for-like swap but I would've preferred us take a gamble on a genuine game changer like Kev.

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Im just playing devils advocate here, but everyone around me last night could see that Gerri had ran out of steam and quite a few were calling for Martinez to sub him for Mirallas but then Geri steps up with another assist late in the game , so maybe Martinez's decision was vindicated

I wasn't bothered about Geri staying on. Like he proved he's always capable of conjuring something up. Kone though, that's a different matter!

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I don't think Deulofeu is strong enough for a consistent 90 minutes, in that we (wisely) play through him quite a bit. This is good -- absolutely, get the ball to him over and over and over. But he does tend to tire, from effort, including his improvement in helping to defend. He's just not as strong as Lukaku, not by a long shot. So, why not start him maybe 3 matches out of 4, but bring on Lennon at 70 minutes. And start Lennon occasionally, bringing on Deulofeu at 55-65 minutes. A fresh Deulofeu can do some real damage in the last 30-35 minutes. That's enough time for 3-4 good crosses. And an occasional howler, too, but not out of exhaustion.

 

On the left, why not alternate Kone and Mirallas, more or less 50-50? Ok, if Kone and Lukaku are good together, give Kone a bit more time than Mirallas, but not 90%-10%. Is Mirallas actually noticeably less likely to help Baines than Kone?

 

And Barry sometimes runs out of steam, too. Last season he and Martinez admitted he played too much. It's happening again. Good heavens, Cleverley and the forgotten Gibson are pretty good players, with different strengths. Besic, too, when healthy.

 

Might Barkley use a break just occasionally, giving way to Naismith, Mirallas, or Cleverley (preferably not Osman), either as starter or at 70 minutes?

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My issue with Kone being left on after the Baines change is two-fold. First, like everyone has said, Kone had given all he could. He was still working his ass off, but wasn't quite capable of getting to the ball or handling it like he did in the first 50-60 minutes. Second, he sucked right into the middle every time we had the ball. This entirely negated anything Baines might want to do on the left. He was the only one over there. With nobody to link up with, he had no way of being effective. There were miles of open grass ahead of him but no way for him to get there short of beating a man half way up the park and taking the ball on a long solo run. Then, his only option is to whip in a cross? Tactically, it was clear that we had become congested and narrow and that Baines needed somebody to stick wide with him. It left me wondering why Baines was even put into the game.

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Because he gives us the better option in attack and he's still the best left back in the game.

Even from deep he can play great passes which he did do.

But yes he needs a player left with him and it would have been Mirallas for me.

I agree with you. My question had more to do with the practical sense of putting him in the game to provide us with a spark on the left only to have every other player further up the pitch vacate the space on the left side. Putting Baines in was a clear tactical choice to make. We hadn't played them down the left and we could shock them by going that way. Less predictable, better balanced and more dangerous. I was fired up! Then what happened was that, every time we have the ball, passing to Baines in the final third was useless, because he had nowhere to go but back into midfield with a horizontal or backwards pass. Why not make the change that allows us to maximize the potential of the sub you just previously made for obviously offensive reasons? It's madness.

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