Substitutions - thoughts

Agree with this. That’s the only reason I can see him being kept on regularly when Kane and Connell are a lot more involved in games. Hopefully Phillips can rediscover his goal scoring form in the end of the season run in.

 

I thought the subs yesterday stopped our flow a bit. Watters didn’t get involved enough but seems to come alive in the box a bit more than our other strikers. Tedic is good at linking play and holding it up but never really looks like scoring. But I get that Norwood and Cole can’t play like they do for 90 minutes.

I thought Benson got involved yesterday and looked the better of our subs.

 

I still don't agree letting Chaplin go was the wrong move at the time. It seems it in hindsight because of what has happened since then, but the fact of the matter is, we'd just finished 5th in the Championship. Conor Chaplin wasn't a striker capable of scoring regularly for a side in the top 6 in the Championship. If we were going to progress, we needed to bring in someone to improve on him. He's doing the business now for Ipswich in league 1, would he be able to do the same for say Luton in the Championship? The issue was, we didn't sufficiently replace him, or Dike, or Mowatt, or Ismael.

 

I agree about Connell. I was very surprised when he came off. However, I don't agree about Benson. I think he played very well yesterday and I think he should start. He makes more forward passes than Kane, delivers better set pieces and has a far better shot

 

The only one in midfield I would have taken off was Phillips. Not that he was poor, just that Kane and Connell keep driving the team forwards and the addition of Luke Thomas would have provided more impetus. I can possibly understand the desire to "look after" them for more important games, but with us a goal behind and 30 minutes to play, I would have kept them on.

No problem with swapping Cole and Norwood though.

 

Yes, the best he's looked this season for me.

 

& DK.

 

The reason we’re criticising the subs today is mainly because Benson and Thomas had poor games when they came on. We’ve hailed Duff as a master of substitutions in the past couple of months. Kane and, particularly, Connell didn’t play well either yesterday. Personally, I wouldn’t make four substitutions at the same time (the substitutions ruined the flow against Morecambe too, when we had looked like scoring 7 or 8), but we were losing the game and not looking like scoring, so something needed to be done.and, as I say, had we scored within a few minutes we’d be hailing Duff as a genius again.

 

Taking connell off was strange imo and I gey Cole and Norwood can't play how they do for 90 mins but if city paid 3million for tedic I must be worth 1million

 

Connell is the deepest of the midfielders and so it makes sense to swap him for Benson who then played 10 yard further up the pitch. Thomas for Kane makes sense also, considering Herbie was visibly tired and lost his footing a lot on that horrific surface.

Neither made a huge impact once on, with Luke very loose in his passing in particular. But the logic seemed obvious to me. As for the Phillips criticism, he’s one of those players who does a lot that goes unnoticed. It was his perfect slide rule pass that released Williams in the build up to the non-awarding of the penalty. And he did very well to find Cadden a couple of times on the left late on, whilst also showing great composure on the edge of the box before an inch perfect chipped pass that Watters really should have buried. He headed it when he could have allowed it to drop and then volleyed it. To be fair to Max, his cushioned header for Cadden’s goal was spot on.

I thought we fared well with the changes and but for their ‘actual’ goalkeeper pulling off a couple of great saves we’d have got a point at least.

Aside from the horrendous decision in the 13th minute, the main issue I saw yesterday was our defending from wide areas. As it was at Exeter.

Feels weird to be analysing yesterday’s game though, because it really should have been a comfortable victory. We’d started well as usual and if the right call had been made, we’d have won at a canter. Again.

However, I also remember leaving Burton after a defeat in 2019 and feeling like we’d have to settle for the playoffs…

All we can do is take out our frustration on the next opponent. Looking forward to Monday.

 

Taking off Connell is just giving up. Every time it happens the scoreline gets worse.

 

I think Connell is our most talented player and our most valuable asset. He has a lot of class. He impressed me the first time I saw him, in the pre-season friendly v Forest, and he has continued to do so ever since.

 

Chaplin wanted out of the club for whatever reason.

 

Disappointing display from luke after he came on. Couldn't pass watter. Just an off day for me though as he's s41t hot most games. Creates so much when he comes on. And was our best player for me prior to his injury.