Our Third Change

His decision making in the last 20/25 minutes was awful. We went from competing to just hoofing the ball forward. Never used the extra man which is criminal. Substitutions killed off any hope of an equaliser.

 

Considering ball was playing wide as winger today rather than upfront i see why the change was made

 

Miller was out on his feet. Had to make the change. So no, not a baffling substitution after all.

 

I’d have pushed ball up top as miller offers nothing other than runs in behind.

We needed more guile up there as the game went scrappy

 

Well the ball was dead awaiting a free kick so not really baffling. The ref had lost all control of the game by then and should have signalled the sub instead of just standing their and looking over to the bench.

 

Referee got the two red cards and the large amount of added time right.

Other than that he was more concerned with posing in his inflatable shirt.

 

I didn’t think any of the substitutions were great and thought we went backwards with each change. Thought the changes underlined our lack of squad depth.

Bruncker is terrible.
We lost our shape entirely when O’Brien went off.
We lost our best attacking threat when Miller went off.

Didn’t really notice the specific timing of the final substitution with regards to the OP’s point but I think the changes were poor in respect of their impact on the game.

 

All substitutions were shocking. But that's more down to having no options on the bench

 

Felt we should have kept the midfield two on and left Payne in front and moved ball up top.

Took miller off and replaced him with Gibson. Gibson could have given us that boost whilst not changing the side too much

 

With what we have on the becnh what would you have done?

I wouldn't have taken O'Brien off, thought he had his best game so far. I'd have taken Scannel off first as I thought he did nothing again, we could have even gone to a back 3 later in the game.

 

Yes, that puzzled me too. Sunderland were sitting deep with a man short, so why did we need four defenders? He could have added an extra attacker without depleting the midfield.