dalriada
Full Member
The reason for so many changes is that, following the lockdown, players who haven't played yet need minutes because the number of games left (League, FA Cup ans EL) means these players will be used, much as some people on this forum won't like it. We can already see some teams in the EPL are struggling for lack of numbers in their squads.I cannot remember a game, in recent times at least even against much lesser opposition and in fact going back to SAF's time, when we have made eight changes (usually to a winning team) and still looked capable of winning a game, quite often only scrapping through with some good luck (like opposition going down to ten), or more likely going down to inglorious defeat.
Fergie did it regularly and we came unstuck on a few occasions, similarly LvG, and Jose and now Ole. Whatever possess a manager to believe he can make eight changes with perhaps two or three days preparation and get the result. Surely they must know its a gamble changing a winning team? Of course there is an argument for rotation of players but not eight changes all at once! in any case players have just had three months off.
I suppose because there was no crowd there, in this case Ole didn't have to consider the fans, but when you've spent money to travel away especially, and to have such teams put out is to my mind a disgrace and an insult to the fans.
Ole must know he's only got maybe five or six really good players, the rest are squad level only and when introduced one or maybe two at a time they can hold the line, but this wholesale introduction is a nonsense, squad players need game time we know but not eight, all at once ffs!
The calculation is, can the manager get a result, with a changed team, against the bottom team, in a cup match? On this occasion it was a close run thing, and Ole won't be happy that he ended up haven't to play 120 minutes. The gain is that he could use his best players sparingly, with a couple of exceptions, and get some of the other players match fit - and you could see how some of them were huffing and puffing for lack of match fitness. They do surely know it's a gamble, but those gambles are part of a manager's lot.