So at 3 goals down we should have replaced Finnan by an attacking player instead of defensive Didi?
It is never a guarantee that putting an attacking player for a defensive one will get ye goals. Another one is putting Lucas on for StevieG against the mongrels last year. By your logic we should never have won that game.
There is a lot of thought that goes into the substitutions, stuff we have no idea about. Best leave it to the pros methinks.
Well, each game has to be seen as a different case.
Against Milan we didn't control midfield as much as we'd liked to and changed that with adding a midfielder.
Against Everton last year we needed a calm head and Lucas provided that.
Against Stoke/Fulham/Westham we had control of the game but lacked goals therefore we should've used all our attacking options in search of the winning goal.
Changing like for like might bring the wanted result, sometimes even if you don't change a thing you might still win but the likelihood of scoring against a team that's happy just to defend will be higher ,even a weird deflected goal, when having more bodies in attack. I think Wigan and Man City this season are the perfect examples. Too bad we only use that same philosophy when we look like losing games.
There are no guaranties in football but knowing we did absolutely everything, including launching all the "heavy" artillery we have, in order to win would've made this weekend a bit less frustrating.
I will say it again... when our manager comes out after a game like we had against Stoke and says: "we have to be pleased we have one more point" - then there's a problem.
Name one player on our bench with the ability to come in and unlock Stoke's defense. Babel can on a good day, problem is he hasn't had one in a while, El Zhar might have added something but if they could outmuscle Babel I don't think El Zhar would have gotten any joy either. Keane needs space to operate and Stoke simply clogged all the attacking channels. We don't have any options so what can Rafa do?
You just named 32 million pounds worth of options. Comparing with United that's the price of one Berbatov (who assisted the winning goal against Stoke when coming off the bench for o'shea just a weekend before). Comparing with Stoke that's a lot of money.
Anyway, the point is that Rafa should either believe in the options he himself brought to this club or move them on.
If that means to
add Keane and believe he can help bring the change and by doing that also helping his confidence then that's what should've been done.
Sure there's the possibility of it not working but at least we'll know we tried everything.
People think that football is like any other strategy game, well it isn't. In football you have to gamble on what you got.
If we don't do everything in our power in order to get the 3 points then what's the point? why even bother?