Muttley
Ben Thatcher
Tonight, we had Forster, Gray, Davies, Dragusin, Bergval and Lankshear who aren't first team compared to Porro, Bissouma, Madds, Son and Johnson who are. When you look at the second list, it's only really Biss and Porro that can be trusted to drive our main tactical structure. The other 3 are part of it, but don't really drive it within the best eleven.
When you look at it like that, you have to admit that it was massively unlikely to see any fluency from that starting eleven.
What could have happened is that Ange admitted that 2 of his 3 or 4 changes were forced upon him - Davies and Dragusin. That should have meant that we had the protection of 2 out of Biss, Bents and Sarr on that pitch and, based on the last 2 games, it would have been the turn of Biss to play the 90 and Bents and Sarr to share the 90. We needed the 2+1 midfield with our regulars starting to help the backup centre halves.
We also had 2 inexperienced centre halves so you probably should start with your regular full-backs to help them through the cauldron that was Gala's attacking talent. For me the 3rd rotation spot could have been either Solanke or Johnson, but not both. Sonny needed more pitch time. I think Ange got this one right. The alternative was to play Son, Solanke and Johnson and just change Venom to get your 3rd change.
I still say this, but the effective way to navigate these games is 8 first teamers with 3 changes. With the subs, that can give up to 8 squad players a chance to be on the pitch at some point. Starting with 5 first team and 6 squad players is just a recipe for disaster. It doesn't help the kids much at all playing with so many changes, let alone the senior squad players. It just scrambles their heads.
There were no extenuating circumstances. This was just another game where we got the team selection strategy wrong. So what that we've got a game on Sunday. That fixture pattern is just business as normal. In fairness, we got the result we deserved.
When you look at it like that, you have to admit that it was massively unlikely to see any fluency from that starting eleven.
What could have happened is that Ange admitted that 2 of his 3 or 4 changes were forced upon him - Davies and Dragusin. That should have meant that we had the protection of 2 out of Biss, Bents and Sarr on that pitch and, based on the last 2 games, it would have been the turn of Biss to play the 90 and Bents and Sarr to share the 90. We needed the 2+1 midfield with our regulars starting to help the backup centre halves.
We also had 2 inexperienced centre halves so you probably should start with your regular full-backs to help them through the cauldron that was Gala's attacking talent. For me the 3rd rotation spot could have been either Solanke or Johnson, but not both. Sonny needed more pitch time. I think Ange got this one right. The alternative was to play Son, Solanke and Johnson and just change Venom to get your 3rd change.
I still say this, but the effective way to navigate these games is 8 first teamers with 3 changes. With the subs, that can give up to 8 squad players a chance to be on the pitch at some point. Starting with 5 first team and 6 squad players is just a recipe for disaster. It doesn't help the kids much at all playing with so many changes, let alone the senior squad players. It just scrambles their heads.
There were no extenuating circumstances. This was just another game where we got the team selection strategy wrong. So what that we've got a game on Sunday. That fixture pattern is just business as normal. In fairness, we got the result we deserved.
