While watching a pretty solid performance last night from the Rovers, the far too common pangs of "what's going on?" started to creep in at the 60 minute mark.
We set up to be worn down, and were doing really quite well until the goals obviously.
In any game you have to factor in fatigue and if a team is set up to be worn down as we were, you have to pay particular attention to the players fitness as the match goes on.
At 60 minutes new impetus is generally needed to refresh the legs and minds of the players, then at say 70 and 80 minutes, taking those off who are worse for wear.
Does Steve Kean know that he can in fact change players during the match? in fact he has a bench of players there for this reason?
I reckon we would have been good for a point had we had fresh legs out there when the goals went in.
The players do seem to be playing for him, but that was terrible management, highlighted by Fergies astute subs throughout the second half.
Substitutions/General Management
posted on 4/4/12
Well I'll start by naming Vukcevic and Salgado (Michel could've maybe gone into a DM position), admittedly he could've done without Givet being out and Goodwillie's court case. Add to this the experience he got rid of in January in the shape of Roberts, Andrews etc. and you realise why his bench is utter carp.
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Only Vukcevic and Goodwillie was available to him i'm not sure i would say they are very good players at his disposal
posted on 4/4/12
What?! Vukcevic is a fantastic player! It's a travesty that he isn't even getting on the subs bench at the moment.
posted on 4/4/12
If he was that good why was only Rovers from Premiar league after him then.It's amazing how a player gets better without playing
posted on 4/4/12
That is silly logic, really. There have been plenty of players that have come to a smaller club under the radar with no one else interested and done fantastically well. In every single game Vukcevic has played for us he has looked very sharp and dangerous and I firmly believe he would be our best player if given regular game time.
posted on 4/4/12
We will have to agree to not to agree cos i think he is over rated and Kean must agrees with me erm don't like the sound of that ..
posted on 5/4/12
Yep I must be watching a different Vukcevic SKA, the only times I've seen him play well have been for his national team. He may be a decent player but there are plenty of decent players out there who come to the PL and just can't cut it. In a Rovers shirt he usually looks slow, lacking in effort and generally ineffective to me.
posted on 5/4/12
I can only recall Vukcevic playing a couple of games. He looked sharp and scored against Sunderland and then disappeared back into the wilderness for reasons unknown.
posted on 5/4/12
@Pie....
I see where you're coming from to an extent with 'who knows' however, subs should've been used.
That's not hindsight, I was stewing during the game, for me, it's common sense.
Anyway, onwards and hopefully upwards eh!
(And I would do some pretty undignified things to have Sam back atm)
posted on 5/4/12
Well I'm with SKA here - Vuckevic has looked capable and more complete than our other players played as midfielders (Formica, Rochina, Petrovic). He may be no world beater but it is indeed ridiculous that he can't make our bench ahead of Petrovic who has been more poo than him.
And with b&whs here - we were actually defending ok until the goal (which was pretty special). I firmly believe that Kean's substitutions cost us the win at Norwich and I do think that was in his mind. Its tough to pickt he players to move to bring a more defensive player on (The Yak is always a goal threat with two touches, Hoillet is an outlet - maybe Pedersen/Marcus but then centre mid is a difficult position to interfere with (Marcus you would bring on Petrovic and push Pedersen left) so difficult to do without disrupting the balance of the team).
However Kean gets paid to make all of these calls and so far he has not made enough of them properly.
posted on 5/4/12
the goal was not special, it was a percentage smash across the face of goal born out of frustration.
agree we defended well, didn't feel like we were riding our luck at any time.