substitutions

[Growler]

tired from what? If anything having Torres on, actually tires them, so that fresh legs can take advantage.

[Shaggy]

IMO Rafa's biggest flaw is his reticence to make swift substitutions. It was Mourinho's strength - if something patently wasn't working, he'd haul the under-performers off at half-time (if not before) and address the problem.

Rafa seems to think "I've come up with this plan for this game and I'm going to stick with it". It's at odds with the way he quickly recognises his **** ups in the transfer market and swiftly ships out anyone who's not working out.

Kuyt & Voronin should both have come off at half-time, IMO.

[CAD]

IMO Rafa's biggest flaw is his reticence to make swift substitutions. It was Mourinho's strength - if something patently wasn't working, he'd haul the under-performers off at half-time (if not before) and address the problem.

Rafa seems to think "I've come up with this plan for this game and I'm going to stick with it". It's at odds with the way he quickly recognises his **** ups in the transfer market and swiftly ships out anyone who's not working out.

Kuyt & Voronin should both have come off at half-time, IMO.

Rafa is slow and conservative. He might be able to recognize a bad move in the transfer market but in fairness he has months to think these things over. Rafa is too slow when it comes to substitutions and changing tactics. Istanbul was a fluke. The changes he made were forced more or less. He wanted to take Traoré off. We all know this.

I'm not too impressed. Athens was disaster as well substitutions-vice.

[Kenneth]

The difference is the oppostion defense will be tired hence using Torres's pace to our advantage, rocket science it isnt.

Effective it isn't.

[alunevans]

I am becoming a little restless at a number of things Rafa is currently doing. His rotation policy policy does my head in but this is a well discussed topic. I would like to focus on his substitution policy.
The first point I would like to make is why does he invariably wait an hour before making substitutions. It was quickly obvious yesterday that Voronin and Kuyt-who are too similar in my opinion-were making no impact on goal. Voronin was anonymous in the first half.Why wait an hour to make a change? Where something isn't working a quick change of player can make all the difference as was shown when Torres came on. This is not just something that arose from yesterdays game but has been symtomatic of Rafa for a number of seasons.Whats his problem with recognising something isn't working and changing it immediately.On a smaller scale it reminds me of Houlliers determination to prove he was right and we were wrong by continually picking crap players he had brought on.
The second point is that if you wish to use substitutes it should be done in a reverse way. He should pick his best players ,get on top in a game, score a few and then bring them off. Yesterday was a prime example of why his current policy is wrong. We started out with a so so team allowing Birmingham time to grow in confidence. One goal would have changed their entire match strategy. Torres should have started. When we scored he could then have been taken off. his time on the pitch over a number of games would average roughly the same but the difference is we are winning when he goes off rather than struggling when he comes on. We have the players to win the league this seaso. Having watched the games against Pompey and Birmingham I believe that Rafa is screwing up our chances by his initial team selection and timing of substitutions. If this continues for the rest of the season the finger of responsibility will rightly be pointing to Rafa. I am incredibly frustrated at the moment

i agree with that. once we go ahead, they can't simply sit back. so lets try and get a goal and open the game up. then we can look at resting people.