Lack of subs tonight

I think the away game at Benfica was clearly on his mind where the subs disrupted our formation/gameplay and didn't have the desired effect,it was on mine too,when Benfica got the equaliser i was just glad to get the point.
I was hoping when we got the 2nd goal all those Brazilians in their team would have 'chucked it'as it was a cold,wet night in Glasgow:confused:
 
I think the away game at Benfica was clearly on his mind where the subs disrupted our formation/gameplay and didn't have the desired effect,it was on mine too,when Benfica got the equaliser i was just glad to get the point.
I was hoping when we got the 2nd goal all those Brazilians in their team would have 'chucked it'as it was a cold,wet night in Glasgow:confused:
He only made one sub in Benfica and it was Aribo off for a knock
 
I thought the same then I looked at who was on the bench and thought “do they make us stronger?”
I didn’t think they did.
Leaving Defoe out the Euro squad was a mistake in my opinion
Itten needs domestic game time before unleashing him Ingo European football

So we have itten on the bench, a Swiss international who we paid over £1m for and he needs to play domestically before Europe?
 
I said in the match thread, I though Kent and / or Roofe should have been subbed around 15 mins to go. Kent looked more knackered than I’ve seen him before. They had both out a power of work in and I thought fresh legs would have helped us pin them back.

But we didn’t. And we’ll never know if it would have changed the outcome, or made it worse. The manager has got so, so much right this season that I can’t believe people are going overboard on one perceived mistake. If he made a mistake he’ll learn from it. He’ll make more. In the context of what he inherited, the progress has been utterly phenomenal.
 
last time we threw on Arfield and totally disrupted our balance which cost us. If we had an Aribo on the bench he would’ve made a change, bringing on Barker would have caused more damage that good.
This is actually extremely unfair on Barker.

I'm not saying that he'd have come on and scored a brace but he has never caused us vulnerability in our shape, he works hard off the ball and does his job.

Absolute worst case scenario is that we got a pacey option for counter attacks that might have been wasteful infront of goal, Kent being so tired meant that he was that anyway.
 
The big problem was Tav trying to get on the end of crosses from the left when we are 2 up.He then has to motor back 70 yards. His attacking prowess is great but when we have 2 goals to protect defending properly is the #1 priority.
 
The big problem was Tav trying to get on the end of crosses from the left when we are 2 up.He then has to motor back 70 yards. His attacking prowess is great but when we have 2 goals to protect defending properly is the #1 priority.
I think that he can get away with that when Jack is playing, he covers the space a bit better than Arfield is capable of.

You're right though, he should have been a bit more conservative with this in mind.
 
I think some folk just expect us to make subs because they're there to be made, as opposed to thinking about how they impact the game.

Who should he have brought on tonight and who for? And how would they have changed the outcome of the game?

It'll be a lazy stick to beat Gerrard tonight with IMO.
It’s not really a lazy anything - it’s just a different opinion from yours.
 
I said in the match thread, I though Kent and / or Roofe should have been subbed around 15 mins to go. Kent looked more knackered than I’ve seen him before. They had both out a power of work in and I thought fresh legs would have helped us pin them back.

But we didn’t. And we’ll never know if it would have changed the outcome, or made it worse. The manager has got so, so much right this season that I can’t believe people are going overboard on one perceived mistake. If he made a mistake he’ll learn from it. He’ll make more. In the context of what he inherited, the progress has been utterly phenomenal.
Barker has serious confidence problems and looks terrified of the ball in big games. Hagi gives the ball away a lot which is not what you need when trying to see a game out, Morelos and Roofe are better at holding the ball up than Itten.

Maybe this had something to do with his decision or lack of. I think at times you have to bow down to Gerrard/ Beale's vast superior knowledge of his players and football generally.
 
Would have put Hellander or Bassey on played an extra man to fill space in front of the defenders. We left ourselves open in midfield. 2-0 we should be closing game out.

Gerrard still has things to learn. Last night was a clear example.
 
If I picked the right 6 numbers I win the lottery...

You can’t guarantee subs make a difference. If he makes the subs and Benfica score then people are crying about the subs upsetting the shape or the team.

We haven’t even lost the game. Support your team.
To not freshen it was entirely counter intuitive, bringing fresh legs on to exploit Benfica having to take risks and one to screen the defence would be the intuitive thing to do.

it’s what the worlds most seasoned coaches would do in such circumstances, with all due respect suggesting it is analogous with a gamble with attendant odds of circa 80m to 1 is plainly misguided.

Making changes to break Benfica’s rhythm and bring fresh legs to key areas was not a reckless gamble it was a necessity!!
 
No midfielders available to change where we needed the changes

all three of the guys who played last night ran themselves into the ground

benfica are a superb team with wonderfully skilful players. Their possession play last night and movement were a joy to watch at times

we matched them and just ran out of legs the last 15 to close the spaces down

this team deserve our backing and so does the manager
 
Steven Gerrard manages Rangers to the top of a tricky Europa league spot, sitting above a very very good Benfica team worth over 150 millon but Ibrox fans not happy with the gaffer, many think he's clueless
Confucious
 
I don’t think playing through us was ever likely to happen.
It was the high ball approach that, in my opinion, Balogun was brought on to defend.
Benfica weren’t likely to punt ball after ball into the box.
All about opinions, but I do think the 3rd centre back 5-3-2 was worth trying as soon as they scored their first.

They were getting more and more possession in our final third and were looking to play through us into the box. We could, and I think should, have looked to minimise the space they had and put on an extra defender while still having Roofe and Morelos as a threat.

Not unhappy with the result in the cold light of day, but still frustrated that we hoped we could hold out as opposed to try to make it more likely.
 
Put Helander in a back 3 and sacrifice a forward player and put Itten on for hold up play and Barker for his pace
Morelos Roofe Kent off
Helander Barker Itten on

Where to start with this nonsense.

Football manager experts on here at times.
 
Steven Gerrard manages Rangers to the top of a tricky Europa league spot, sitting above a very very good Benfica team worth over 150 millon but Ibrox fans not happy with the gaffer, many think he's clueless
Confucious
Nobody is saying he's clueless, simply many think he should have made a change when the game was running away from us.

It's a perfectly sensible point of view, and one some will agree and some won't. Gerrard has been utterly magnificent but doesn't mean you can't think he got something wrong.
 
Last time we moaned he had changed the game with the subs
You can’t win
Lack of subs is a long term problem.
But you can't conveniently blame it every time we lose s mate goal.
We made subs against the sheep and drew a blank the last half hour when 4-0 up.

Some balance required.

The subs are now last seasons players who were not good enough last season.
So we need to step up the quality again regardless of how the season is going or goes.
 
Felt at 2-0 and at 70 mins some changes were required.

Fresh legs and break up the game.

Still a great position to be in but more game management required
Should have brought Bassey on for Arfield or Davis Itten or Barker for Kent .would have protection for back 4 and fresh legs up top would have gave them something to worry about instead 11 tired players soldiered on . Sometimes making subs disrupts concentration etc so kinda got management team reluctance to do it.
 
Our tactics to sit back didn’t work in the 2nd half and our forwards not holding the ball was a factor too
I agree. We surrendered possession in the middle of the park and defended and held our line too deep. There was too big a gap between front and back. We contested for the ball on our 18 yard line rather than the midfield. One slip or break in that area of the park and they’re in with no chance for us to recover.
 
It’s clearly the managers biggest weakness IMO.

I’m not sure if it’s because he doesn’t really trust the guys on the bench or if he’s afraid they won’t get up to speed quickly enough but when you play good teams then you get punished if your team are shattered for a considerable time.
 
Look its gone now, we got a good point but it could have been 3.

Anybody trying to claim we could not have made subs to try and see out the game are in denial.

We could argue about this for days, games over now time to move on.
 
I think the away game at Benfica was clearly on his mind where the subs disrupted our formation/gameplay and didn't have the desired effect,it was on mine too,when Benfica got the equaliser i was just glad to get the point.
I was hoping when we got the 2nd goal all those Brazilians in their team would have 'chucked it'as it was a cold,wet night in Glasgow:confused:
Games of that kind of intensity and opposition need suitable subs that slot into position immediately, we do have a player that fittted the role imo (Hagi) but that had its own risk in terms lack of his lack of form and experience. I agree subs for the sake of fresh legs on this occasion wouldve disrupted our shape, it was stick or twist.
 
Someone was telling me we were the only team in the Europa League last night not to make a sub.

Benfica won because they changed five of their outfield players and we were literally facing half of a new team at some point in the second half.

It wasn't a coincidence that they scored two late goals in the second half. Our players were dead on their feet and the defenders were getting caught on the ball because the attackers couldn't make the same moves they were in the first half. It was the reason Goldson got caught on the ball at one point.

Ultimately it doesn't matter who is coming on as long as they're fit enough to run defenders into the channels. Kent is better than Barker but a fresh Barker is more useful to us that a tired Kent.

The aversion to subs at this point is just weird. He's two and a half years into the job.
 
At 2-0 with 15 to go, take a foward off and put a defender on ffs.

At that point we didn't need to score more - we needed to ensure we tightened up and didn't conceded.

So frustrating!
Roofe, Kent and Morelos at times were all defending. Even 85 minutes we still had runs forward, nearly scored again, Barker on to run the ball into the corners, Bassy, Helander to shore it up at the back with fresh legs. Might have worked at 2-1 who knows, it's only an opinion, keeps the wheels turning on threads haha.
 
Who'd have thunk the top thread on here is moaning faced c*nts being moaning faced c*nts as effin usual.

At least they have something to post about after months of keeping their daft mouths shut with our excellent form.
 
part of me thinks it was because most of the starting XI will be rested or benched for Sunday
leave the subs to get some time at the weekend
 
I think some folk just expect us to make subs because they're there to be made, as opposed to thinking about how they impact the game.

Who should he have brought on tonight and who for? And how would they have changed the outcome of the game?

It'll be a lazy stick to beat Gerrard tonight with IMO

Out team was knackered going into the last 20 mins that was evident to anyone.

With a tiring team against a team who have just put two more attackers on we should be shoring up the team to hold out. Hellander was the obvious substitution to either go in as a sweeper or in front of the back 4.

In the end we were lucky to get out with the draw as the game was all them in the last third
 
Nobody is saying he's clueless, simply many think he should have made a change when the game was running away from us.

It's a perfectly sensible point of view, and one some will agree and some won't. Gerrard has been utterly magnificent but doesn't mean you can't think he got something wrong.
Did you read the threads last night? Albeit, many were probably filth posters, how folk are staggered buy Gerrards decisions, Gerrard froze, Gerrard never learns, Gerrard should have seen this, that, Gerrards game management is poor, its deja vu, Gerrards always the same with subs and quite a few more little quips. Many of those quips are referring to ongoing
 
Who'd have thunk the top thread on here is moaning faced c*nts being moaning faced c*nts as effin usual.

At least they have something to post about after months of keeping their daft mouths shut with our excellent form.

I was going to bump my thread about lack of subs after the last game against Benfica,

but remembered what was said after it, “we will learn from this”

Did we learn ?
 
This has nothing to do with where we are as a team or a club even. The argument is that more often than not, Gerrard is not using substitutions effectively in games. I went back another round of fixtures of Champions League and Europa League matches. Make that once in 80 matches has a manager failed to make a single substitution in a game. You have to wonder just how far that run stretches. It's a bit of a tedious process to find out but it would not shock me if it went back several hundreds of games. It's bizarre why he did not make a change tonight given the amount of running we had to do within the game.

Gerrard has transformed us and built us into a very decent team but his use of substitutions or lack of them is no doubt his biggest weakness. Jorge Jesus made substitutions in both games against us and on both occasions they had a meaningful impact on the game which saved them from two defeats.
Having a squad worth a 100 million euros will do that.
 
It seems to be universally accepted (well almost) that we didn’t have the subs in the bench that could have done the job required on the night.

Lets look at it from another angle shall we?

Given that we had gotten ourselves into a winning position in Portugal and let it slip towards the end against very fast, fit and tactically aware opponents should we perhaps have looked at including including more defensive minded players on the bench last night?

As the home team it shouldn’t have been unrealistic to hope that we could have gone ahead in this game as we did in the away leg and again it’s not too unrealistic to expect that with the intense pressing game that we play players will be tiring around the minute mark.

Hands up I don’t know much about our fringe players so I have to ask do we have anyone suitable available that could have been on the bench that would have suited the game plan?

I’m in no way criticising SG or any of the management team but the questions being asked about the lack of subs and the lack of suitability of the subs on the bench are valid particularly in light of how the away leg panned out.
 
The only change I could see that would have made any sense last night would have been Bassey on for Barisic who seemed to be struggling after taking a knock. Benfica seemed to have switched to targeting him instead of Tav. Even then, I only really picked up on that after their first goal.

I imagine Gerrard would have caught the same, or more, flack if he had taken Barisic off and then we conceded.
 
I agree that the one possible sub that could have made a difference was perhaps Hellander. However replacing for a forward wouldve equally meant being totally under the kosh for the last 20 min without having any realistic goal threat. We may well have held out but given Benficas constant goal threat there was no guarantee, they were bloody good. Both our midfield and defense done well to contain them, but I think it was our lack of midfield options on the bench last night that cost us. Someone clever enough to hold the ball up better in their half and at the same time still pose a threat.
 
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