Roy Hodgson has just three strikers in his England squad to face Moldova and Ukraine, after Andy Carroll was ruled out with a hamstring injury. The Independent reports.
Carroll produced an impressive debut performance for West Ham in their 3-0 win over Fulham, but had to limp off the pitch after 60 minutes.
It has been a frustrating time for English strikers, with none seeming to hit the heights which Hodgson would like going into another qualification campaign.
Wayne Rooney had been struggling for form for some time before being dropped from the Manchester United starting line-up and could now be laid off for 2 months.
Meanwhile, Danny Welbeck’s starting place is under threat by the arrival of Robin van Persie, while Daniel Sturridge cannot force his way into the thinking of Roberto Di Matteo and ahead of Fernando Torres.
Darren Bent and Peter Crouch were both hoping for recalls to the side, with both players having respectable international records, especially Crouch who has scored 22 goals in 42 caps.
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But Hodgson has decided to stick with a forward line of Sturridge, Welbeck and Defoe for the upcoming qualifiers and it seems that the absence of Rooney remains his biggest grievance.
“We can’t deny our major attacking focus and hope was Rooney, who could only play the last couple of games in the Euros and whom we were counting on to be a major factor in our qualifying campaign from the first moment”, he said.
In reality, England should be able to cope with Rooney’s absence against a team ranked 137th in the world, but Hodgson admits he is wary of complacency especially as Moldova impressively held World Cup finalists, Holland to a draw in the last qualifying campaign.
“We have to come to terms with what the stadium is going to be like, what’s the atmosphere going to be like, what’s the pitch going to be like – and how good are these players –and relate that to the players we choose and make sure they go into the game with the best possible preparation.
“If we are not aware of the fact that this is a major hurdle of the 10 hurdles we have to jump over then we would be very, very foolish.”
It’s often said that one of they factors to making any relationship work, is the ability for both parties to adhere to compromise. And perhaps to some extent, the relationship with Andre Villas-Boas and Tottenham Hotspur, could well be defined by how the Portuguese finds tactical common ground with his new football club.
Because although Villas-Boas is quite rightly looking to define his teams’ future by instilling his own ideologies and way of playing, you ultimately cannot erase the past. Not overnight, anyway.
As Spurs came out for the second half against Queens Park Ranger last Sunday a team transformed, you would have thought that come the end of the match, Villas-Boas would be jumping for joy at proceedings. You could perhaps argue that he was left scratching his head with more questions than answers, as Tottenham prospered under a traditional 4-4-2 set-up – quite some distance away from the tactical set-ups favoured by the ex-Porto man in his outings so far as Spurs boss.
Of course, there have been extenuating circumstances for Spurs so far this season. It’s been noted many times in these articles, but it’s an important observation that the 3-1 win away at Reading represented the first fixture in which Villas-Boas had the full set of players needed to make either a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 adequately work.
The Queens Park Rangers game did of course represent only Spurs fifth league game this season. Some could argue to the contrary, but considering the transfer market fuelled travails that the side faced during their first three fixtures, sitting one point behind Manchester City in the Premier League with eight in total, isn’t quite so bad after all.
Although despite the performance against Reading at the Madjeski and to a slightly lesser extent, the draw with Lazio in the Europa League, it feels difficult to shake an underlying feeling of disjointedness within this current starting XI. Where as some aspects, such as the deep midfield pairing of Moussa Dembele and Sandro have looked promising in the new look AVB set-up, more concerningly, the attacking unit of Spurs team hasn’t looked wholly comfortable.
The biggest worry so far, is perhaps undeniably Gareth Bale’s level of performance in a Spurs shirt. When switched to a traditional wide-left role against QPR on Sunday, the Welshman looked right back at home, delivering direct bursts of speed and trademark delivery in his usual deadly fashion. Villas-Boas’ deployment of Bale at left-back was of course a poor decision- he is too much of a potent asset going forward and judging by the way he played in the first-half, his heart didn’t seem to be in it anymore, either.
But it hasn’t just been Gareth Bale who’s looked off colour, either. Gylfi Sigurdsson, bar his part in Jermain Defoe’s first goal at the Madjeski, has struggled to make any form of impact as White Hart Lane as of yet. Aaron Lennon has foraged and harried well, but hasn’t sustained much of a continuous impact. It seems remarkable that a striker such as Defoe, can score four league goals in five games and still face questions, but his overall contribution as a lone frontman continues to be examined. On paper, Villas-Boas has the players to make a 4-2-3-1 or to the like, stick. Putting that into practice hasn’t quite been so easy.
The crux is ultimately, that Villas-Boas and the Spurs team must still be given serious time to adapt to change. It’s a phrase that be beginning to ring hollow in the ears of some, but making wholesale tactical and personnel changes such as what Tottenham Hotspur have undertaken, is a long journey indeed. But sooner or later, a tipping point will be reached. Quite when that tipping point will be reached, is a lot harder to say.
But if Villas-Boas can’t get his attacking unit to play, there’s absolutely no harm in finding a short-term compromise, at least till the January transfer window anyway. A second swoop for one Joao Moutinho certainly shouldn’t be ruled out, but although he was the most integral target to AVB’s plans that the club failed to attain, you can now understand why there was also such a concerted effort to bring Shakhtar Donetsk forward Willian to N17.
The team feels as if they need a forward thinking player with a little bit more tactical nous. Willian has the core technical skills and close control that Villas-Boas will crave, but perhaps more importantly, the tactical understanding to fit into his blueprint aswell. At times, Spurs’ forward unit has looked unsure of their responsibilities and roles within this team. The point remains that a large proportion of this team have yet to taste much past 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1. Learning a new of playing will take time and while most will adapt, not all will perhaps prove as effective in a new style.
There is a feeling that the imminent return of Emmanuel Adebayor can breathe life and direction into this Spurs team. Some may find it absurd that Defoe, after his goalscoring run, could possibly be dropped. But the fortunes of the lone frontman are closely linked to that of the attacking three behind. It’s a sensitive subject at Spurs, but the team needs the whole side to profit and not just Defoe himself. The big Togolese can bring the best out of Sigurdsson, Bale, Lennon et al and he could catalyze the attacking side of AVB’s plans into life.
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But if Adebayor continues to struggle with fitness and Tottenham’s wingers keep misfiring, there’s no shame in finding an alternative way of playing. If 4-4-2 works a treat at home, why not deploy it from time to time? The chance to develop the long term tactical vision won’t disappear if he decides to revert back to a more traditional set-up every now and then. If the boss feels that he still doesn’t have the whole set of players to get the best out of his preferred set-up, then he can’t remain too stubborn in the face of adversity.
To quote Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. Villas-Boas can’t have foreseen how every player will perform in a new set-up. By all means give them time, but if he has to find an alternative until an opportunity comes to change it, then so be it.
Do you think compromise is key for Andre Villas-Boas and Tottenham Hotspur? Let me know how you view the current Spurs set-up and how you’d line the side up for the United game on Twitter: follow @samuel_antrobus and talk all things Tottenham.
Former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola is set to have talks with AC Milan about the possibility of taking charge of the Serie A giants, according to reports in Italy.
Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport claim AC Milan club president Silvio Berlusconi wants to speak with Guardiola as the future of present boss Massimiliano Allegri remains in doubt.
Guardiola has been a long-term target for European Champions Chelsea but Carlo Mazzone, a close friend of the Spanish manager, claims Guardiola may only consider a return to management in Italy.
Mazzone told MilanNews.it: “He has friends here and was happy in Italy. If he does return then clearly it will be to coach a team of great technical potential with important objectives.
“I would be very happy if Pep returned to Italy. Where could he go? Milan or Inter – there isn’t exactly a vast choice. He has had his time in Spain and I think he could come here, though I don’t know whether it’ll be in a day, a year or five years.”
Guardiola made his name in management at Barcelona where he won 14 major trophies in just four seasons, including three La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey trophies and two Champions League triumphs.
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The Spaniard resigned as Barcelona boss at the end of last season and immediately stated he would be taking a year’s break from the game to recharge his batteries.
Tottenham Hotspur and German side Bayern Munich have also been linked with Guardiola but AC Milan now appear to be the front runners to secure his services.
England captain Steven Gerrard has hit back at Patrick Vieira over claims that the nation’s young home-grown players are not as driven as they used to be.
The Manchester City football development executive recently questioned the latest generation of English youngsters and their motivation of representing their country.
However, ahead of Tuesday’s clash with Poland, Gerrard has defended the young players that are eager to make the national set-up.
“I don’t really care what Patrick Vieira says,” the Liverpool midfielder told reporters, published in the Daily Mail.
“It surprised me to read that. The impression I get from young players at Liverpool is that they’re desperate to get into this set-up.
“You can see in their faces that, when they’re left out, it has disappointed them. The young players are hungry.
“It is great for English football that we are producing these players. They are the players that are keeping the likes of myself on my toes.
“I know I’ve got to keep a consistency in my game at this level to stay in the team. All the experienced players are aware of that,” he continued.
Gerrard is in line to make his 99th cap against the Warsaw-based team, but is playing down the individual significance and eager to win three points.
“Every time you put the England shirt on it is a proud moment.
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“To get 99 is a fantastic achievement for myself but it will only be a good memory tomorrow night if we get the three points that we came for,” he concluded.
Gerrard returns to the fray after being suspended for Friday’s 5-0 win over San Marino.
Former Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has been strongly linked with replacing current QPR boss Mark Hughes after the west London club’s slow start to the new Premier League season, but is he really the right man to take over the reins should they ever consider ditching the Welshman?
The main point to take from the team’s battling draw against ten-man Everton at the weekend was that the club narrowly avoided the now infamous ‘two points from eight games’ shtick which Redknapp plugged to death when lauding Tottenham’s progress under his tenure after he inherited a deeply inconsistent outfit from the sacked Juande Ramos. Thank heavens for that.
However, there’s an altogether more serious point to look at and it seems to be one that’s been glossed over by the large majority of the mainstream media when discussing Redknapp’s credentials, would he even be the right man to turn things around at Loftus Road?
It’s worth noting that despite picking up just three points from their opening eight league games this season, which sees the side currently sitting bottom of the table, that QPR have not yet been cut adrift and they are still only one victory away from the heady heights of 15th in the league, so while there must surely be cause for concern, particularly after the investment involved, they are far from a dead cert to go down as of yet.
The club’s outspoken owner Tony Fernandes has repeatedly backed Hughes in the press, reasonably claiming that the league season is a marathon and not a sprint and that he simply won’t be making a rash decision based on a sloppy start, but that doesn’t mean that Hughes isn’t under increasing pressure to get results.
It’s become abundantly clear, first by championing his cause to replace Fabio Capello as England boss, then the widespread dismay that followed when he was sacked by Tottenham and replaced by Andre Villas-Boas that Redknapp has friends in high places and that the media are not shy in pushing claims for their man to get the next big job going, whether he is right for it or not.
To his credit at least, Redknapp has distanced himself with reports claiming that his appointment is a sure thing, telling Sky Sports News earlier this month: “None whatsoever, not a chance. Mark Hughes is a top manager, I have heard nothing from anybody.”
But this was then quickly followed up with the caveat: “I have had lots of offers to go abroad and work. I have had some fantastic offers but I am very happy living where we live so it would be difficult for me to move away. It would have to be something special to make me go abroad and work. I’ll just wait and see what comes up” which has inevitably led to the stories continuing.
It’s not as if Redknapp has a poor pedigree either, having done well near the bottom of the league with West Ham in the past and establishing them as a solid upper mid-table side, but the fact that he spent recklessly at Portsmouth which subsequently led the club to go in free-fall, spiralling ever closer to financial oblivion and got Southampton relegated means he’s far from ideal at the same time.
Hughes has taken a gigantic gamble this term by plowing money into ageing players with little to no sell-on value that will need replacing within two years. It’s a gamble because it also attracts mercenary figures like Jose Bosingwa and Julio Cesar, while naming Park Ji-Sung as skipper was a silly move. There is clearly a lot wrong with the side, but would a manager like Redknapp, entering the twilight of his own career, really fancy taking on the long-term and potentially reputation-damaging risks that the QPR job would come with?
We should not forget that it was Redknapp’s short-term, stop-gap signings of Louis Saha and Ryan Nelson in January which failed to re-ignite a stuttering title challenge and that Steven Pienaar, Vedran Corluka and Sebastien Bassong left them short of cover at the back and out wide after being sent out on loan, robbing his squad of any depth at a time when they needed it the most. He marginalised Niko Kranjcar and Giovanni Dos Santos, while comparing Darren Bent in the past to his wife when asked about his finishing ability, going some way to dispelling the near mythic man-management skills that he’s so often praised for.
By selling Peter Crouch, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Robbie Keane inside a year and then bringing only Emmanuel Adebayor in on loan last term, by the end of the season and after his departure, he left with squad with only one recognised striker. The point that I’m trying to convey is that when it comes to squad builders, he’s hardly the best around.
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This is not to say that Hughes will remain as manager for much longer, though, for his over-inflated sense of self-worth and the giant chip he carries around on his shoulder due to the misplaced sense of injustice over his sacking from Manchester City grate equally as much as Redknapp’s media-friendly, quote-happy style, but you have to question the wisdom of ditching a manager such as Hughes, who seems tail0r-made to forging teams that are difficult to beat with a man as self-serving as his anointed heir is.
The season is far from over and with an owner seemingly patient to keep faith in the man he backed heavily in the summer, there’s no reason why Hughes cannot turn things around, but should they aim to replace him if results don’t improve, despite the all-consuming Pravda-style party line that ‘their man’ Harry is the best placed to take over simply because he doesn’t have a job at the minute, if you dig a little deeper then that bold claim simply doesn’t add up.
In 1973, West Ham employed a new youth coach. His name was Tony Carr and, little did he nor the club know, his appointment would see him develop into one of the most influential figures in English football.
Today, West Ham is known as The Academy of Football. Under Carr’s unrivaled eye for spotting world class potential in young players, the club has provided the national team with some of the best players to have worn a Three Lions Shirt.
There are very few people in the game who can boast a record of developing future international regulars like Carr’s. In the 39 years since he joined the coaching staff at Upton Park, Carr has seen no less than 21 of his youth players collect an approximate total of 834 international caps throughout their careers, with the most notable names being Paul Ince, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Jermain Defoe, Glen Johnson, Sol Campbell and John Terry.
Although Ince and Johnson never won a cap while playing for West Ham, and Campbell and Terry left the club before being offered their first professional contracts, it is argued that if it wasn’t for Carr’s influence, they may not have made such a formidable impact on the English game.
Carr’s academy players have made West Ham approximately £80 million in transfer fees throughout the years with Ferdinand going on to become the world’s most expensive defender in 2000 when Leeds United paid £18 million for him and then again in 2002 when Manchester United forked out a whopping £34 million to bring him to Old Trafford.
So this all begs the question: Have England missed a trick with Tony Carr?
Of course, he has made a huge impact on the national side over the years, but has his expertise been overlooked by the FA?
In an era when we are struggling to compete with the world’s best teams and only have a handful of talent coming through the ranks in the likes of Jack Wilshere, Tom Cleverley, Raheem Sterling and Wilfried Zaha, could Carr have been used as someone to help England managers past and present pinpoint the country’s best young players and develop them into world class international talent?
I have always believed that Carr would have been best suited as England’s Director of Youth Development, just as he is now with West Ham, working along side the managers of all the sides below the first team.
In that role he would have been able to let the first team manager know what players should be looked at and what players perhaps needed a little more development. His fantastic eye for talent could have helped England nurture more top players, especially now they have St. George’s Park at their disposal.
With the opportunity to overlook the best talent from all the clubs in the country, we might be looking at a completely different England set up to the one we see today and we may have progressed further than the quarter-finals of a major tournament a few times. Or maybe not.
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After all, in Fabio Capello’s 23-man England squad that went to the 2010 World Cup, there were no less than seven players trained by Carr. So he has been of some service to England already, but we will always wonder whether he could have made a bigger impact had he been working on the inside rather than at West Ham.
Despite that, on current evidence, England’s loss seems to have been West Ham’s gain. And this is something that England may need to look to in the future in order to progress and become a dominant force in international football once again.
What do you think? Could England have benefited more from Tony Carr? Were his expertise overlooked? Leave your comments below.
Liverpool midfielder Joe Cole wants to rip up his Anfield contract and receive a £3.6million pay off according to talkSPORT.
Cole has failed to break into the Liverpool first team since his arrival from Chelsea in 2010 and even spent last season on loan with French club Lille.
With his career on the decline it seems Cole is desperate to get out of Merseyside and is willing to make it easy for Brendan Rodgers and the club.
Cole is reportedly on £100,000 a week but he is willing to receive £50,000 a week in compensation until his contract is up if he can leave the club for nothing.
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The former West Ham midfielder will be a wanted man if this bizarre deal goes through and Uncle Harry at Queens Park Rangers will undoubtedly be at the front of the queue to snap him up along with Reading, West Ham and Aston Villa.
He may not be the most popular former son that Anfield has produced in recent times, but after Stoke striker Michael Owen agreed with Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s assertion that Liverpool’s mismanagement of the the player when he was younger more than contributed to an injury-hit career, are we simply seeing a carbon copy happening with Fernando Torres at Chelsea all over again? And should the club’s supporters be worried about their over-reliance on youth on Merseyside again this term?
In all honesty, the 32-year-old (former?) England international’s career has been on a downwards slope ever since he left Real Madrid back in 2005 at the age of 26, with a number of questionable career moves robbing him of any chance he had of making good on his enormous potential. Timing has never been Owen’s strongest point, whether it be leaving Merseyside for Spain in pursuit of silverware only to see Liverpool hoist the Champions League trophy aloft at the end of the campaign in the most unlikely of circumstances, or his terrible knee injury suffered just moments into the 2006 World Cup. In short, he’s had an unfulfilled career.
United boss Ferguson told the Daily Mail last month that Owen’s relentless playing schedule at such a young age was the root cause of his injury problems later on in his career: “You can play too much football, particularly young players growing and developing physically. That’s exactly what happened with Michael. He would’ve been a far better player if he’d been allowed to improve technically and develop rather than playing all the time. When the England youth team played in that tournament in Malaysia we had two players in the tournament at the same time, Curtis and Wallwork. We gave them a month’s rest after they came back from the tournament but Liverpool put Owen right back in the first team. And then the following season he played in the World Cup so he never had a summer break. I don’t think he was allowed to develop technically, as he himself said to me when I discussed it with him.It’s maybe a bit churlish to say that’s the reason he wasn’t better. I think he would have been better technically but he was still a fantastic player.”
What would be churlish would be to lay the blame squarely at Liverpool’s door for a career which often threatened to scale the heights of past England legends such as Gary Lineker and Jimmy Greaves but ultimately fell short. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that playing so often may have had a detrimental effect on his development in the long run. For example, Owen played 316 games for club and country before his 24th birthday, which in comparison to Ryan Giggs (112), Paul Scholes (123) and David Beckham (184) is shocking. In only his second season as a professional, he featured in 44 games across all competitions as a raw 17-year-old – Raheem Sterling, take note.
Owen has his take on his time at Liverpool and the club’s over-reliance on him through his own official website: “As a youngster, I was considered exceptional and in many ways, that was to my detriment. While I was playing every game available to me, there was another young kid in the Liverpool academy called Steven Gerrard who was also showing huge potential.”Unlike me, who was playing 80-odd games a year, Stevie just couldn’t stay fit. I am convinced that this played to his advantage in the long run. I couldn’t get enough of it. I would play a full season with Liverpool and then once the season was over, while everyone wrapped their best youngsters up to have a summer break, I was jetting off to play for England, sometimes playing three years above my age group at the highest level. This continued for a few years. I played week in, week out without a break, for years.
“My body made me pay for pushing it to the limit too often,” he explained. “My hamstring snapped in two and it was at that point that my ability to perform unimpeded was finished. It didn’t have to be that way. My rehabilitation was compromised due to our physio leaving the club that summer and not being replaced until the following season and with no regular medical care during such a critical time, a routine injury was destined to restrict me for the rest of my career.”It is due to this factor (confirmed by many medical experts), that I have suffered multiple injuries since. People laugh when I say that I am not naturally injury prone. It is my genuine opinion that I have become injury prone due to overplaying at a young age, suffering an injury as a result and then having a dreadful rehabilitation at such a critical time.”
It’s an astonishing account of the duty of care that the club provided at the time and while the player has left himself open to mockery plenty of times since – from the Dubai helicopter advert, to the player brochure circulated to every Premier League by his agent prior to his switch to Old Trafford – you have to feel sorry for him to an extent. Hamstring injuries are part and parcel of the game and somewhat inevitable, but they only come about through poor conditioning of the muscle, which is more likely to happen in an over-worked player whose body is still developing and not being allowed the appropriate time to rest.
Chelsea forked out £50m for Fernando Torres from Liverpool back in January 2010 and after suffering numerous hamstring strains while on international duty with Spain, he was rushed back into Rafa Benitez’s side despite not being at full fitness due to the team being lost without him.
Talk of his decline, particularly a reduction of his blistering pace, has focused mainly on his time at Stamford Bridge, but there were early signs that all was not well in his final six months at Anfield. An unwillingness to make runs in behind, a lack of confidence and sloppiness in possession, the 28-year-old struck just nine times in his final 23 league games, which while comparable with his record in west London, is well down on the rest of him time at Liverpool.
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He too was thrust into the spotlight at an early age at Atletico Madrid, and made 36 league appearances back in the 2001-2 season for the club in Spain’s second tier when he was 17. By the time he had moved to Liverpool at the age of 23, he had already made 288 appearances for both club and country with echoes of the sort of ‘too much, too soon’ story associated with Owen.
It’s no coincidence that both players relied on pace, broke through at a young age and suffered from similar knee and hamstring issues during their careers, while Liverpool’s over-reliance on both saw them rushed back at times before they were truly ready. While Liverpool are wholly culpable for Owen’s decline, they remain only partly responsible for Torres’, but with the club’s new manager having to rely so heavily on several youngsters to pad out his squad this campaign, due in part to the fiscal restraints placed on him from above, he should remain wary of history repeating itself once again.
Rafael Benitez has reignited his rivalry with Sir Alex Ferguson claiming the Manchester United boss avoids punishment for unduly pressurising match officials, the Daily Mail report.
The interim Chelsea manager crossed swords with Ferguson on a number of occasions during his six-year spell at Liverpool – notably attacking his old foe in 2009 press conference for his treatment of referees and their assistants.
Ferguson has been thrust into the spotlight once again this after criticising the performance of linesman Simon Beck during the 1-1 draw on Sunday, claiming he had a ‘shocking game’ after failing to flag for a penalty after Steven Caulker’s trip Wayne Rooney in the second half.
And Benitez insists it is crystal clear his Old Trafford adversary is still harassing officials without being reprimanded and questioned whether the FA will discipline the 71-year-old for his behaviour on the touchline.
“Maybe now a lot of people are seeing the same things,” he said. “I will not talk too much about that because it’s obvious. It’s a question for the FA what they do about it.
“What I said at that time was what I thought and what I’m seeing now is similar. It depends on the FA. I don’t know what they will do.”
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In the modern day managers don’t necessarily pick their best starting eleven anymore, instead selecting what he considers to be his ‘best team’. To put it into perspective he chooses the best possible line up to begin the game but also pays heavy attention to the substitutes bench, electing players that could be called upon to offer an extra dimension when the situation requires.
The role of a substitute has altered significantly since they were first introduced in the mid-1960’s and have taken on a pronounced sense of importance. This is especially true in cup competitions when matches can stretch beyond the allotted 90 minutes into extra time and penalty shootouts. The introduction of fresh legs and fresh minds at the opportune moment can prove to be the ultimate difference between success and failure.
As the role of a super sub harks itself back into fashion this term the Capital One Cup has shown that football’s equivalent of a proxy is becoming more of a valuable asset to managers. Examples of such aren’t exactly thin on the ground either with Chelsea and Aston Villa two of the more prominent teams to benefit from a change over the course of a game.
The introduction of Eden Hazard essentially swung the quarter final clash with Leeds in favour of the Blues, the Belgian winger entering the fray on the hour mark with the score finely poised at 1-1. In the 30 minutes he was on the field Hazard provided the pace and incision missing in the first period and unnerved the home side enough for Chelsea to score four more goals, including one of his own nine minutes from time, and easily dispatch their Championship opponents.
Similarly for Villa, their last eight clash with Norwich was won by a well judged substitution by Paul Lambert. The decision to throw Andreas Weinmann on for an injured Darren Bent in the 35th minute once again showed the value of a strong bench with the Austrian going on to win the game for the west Midlands club with two goals in the second half.
Those are just two samples that have cropped up from this seasons competition and they certainly won’t be the last. Teams are now throwing caution to the wind in cup competitions, with an emphasis now placed on rotation and maintaining player freshness, there is a viable argument that astute substitutions are the key to winning the Capital One Cup.
You just have glance at some of the finals that have been decided on the swing of a substitution in the competitions illustrious history. Obafemi Martins for Birmingham in 2011. Wayne Rooney for Manchester United in 2010. Mateja Kezman for Chelsea in 2005. Perry Groves for Arsenal in 1987. All made significant contributions for their team on the way to cup success.
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In an era where squad rotation and fixture congestion has become more and more prevalent the value of a strong bench has never been higher. Substitutions are now shaping the landscape now that managers are opting not to field a full strength eleven and games are frequently being taken into extra time. The requirement for these game changers is becoming a standard necessity as the advantage of having a strong squad is cherished.
The days when decisions were made at the drop of a hat are long gone with changes now more methodical and mapped out as the minutes tick by. More and more managers are now beginning to probe how a sub can impact the pattern of game and turn the tide in their favour.