Saints At Sunderland The Verdict Sunday, 16th Feb 2014 09:04 The over riding feeling after this game is one of anger, anger that we have thrown away the best opportunity that we have had to challenge for a trophy since 2003. The fact that we made six changes to the starting line up didn't anger me, in the main the player coming in were all experienced and capable of putting in a performance, I have often said we need to use the squad more and rest players and I still believe that, what did surprise me though was that if one player would need resting in a week that has seen three tough games would you rest a youngster or a player who is about to turn 32 the next day and has played all but 13 minutes of the last 5 games, putting it this way makes the changes a little strange in my opinion. Although it has to be said that Sunderland had a little more of the play than is normal for our opponents of late, they did little with it, in fact their play was typical of our style, they had a lot of the ball but rarely threatened our goal their winner coming just after the break was out of the blue. But for our part we rarely threatened either, obviously we weren't as fluent as normal, but we were comfortable, the first two substitutions were the obvious ones to make, no one could argue with them. No what argued me most about this game and i am still almost 24 hours later trying to work out just what the manager was doing and his motivations for doing so, was the final change with 8 minutes of the game left. Normally when you are a goal down in the closing stages of a cup tie, you go for broke a bit, perhaps take a defender off, go three at the back and throw everything you have at the opposition, perhaps you go a little more cautious, take off one of your defensive midfield players, put on a more attacking options and you go for it that way. But what happened in the 82nd minute defied belief, what I have never seen or at least remember seeing a Saints manager do in this position is take off your best attacking option in Adam Lallana and replace him with a 19 year old player from the developement squad who has never played for the first team before and doesn't even have a squad number. This was just a preposterous decision, yes Pochettino was a bit short on options for the last substitution, but whose fault was that ? but he still had options, he could have bought on Callum Chambers for instance gone three at the back and pushed Nathan Clyne forward, indeed Clyne had engineered our best chance of the game with a great overlapping run to the byeline and I will never know how Rickie Lambert managed to get the ball over the bar from barely two yards, it defied the laws of physics. We could have put Jack Cork on, Cork can move the ball quickly, again we could have gone three at the back and pushed Wanyama forward to utilise his strength up front. n short we could have done just about anything else than what he did do, I have nothing against Sam McQueen, I have never seen him play before and to be facetious I still don't think I have, but that isn't his fault, he may go on to become the best player in our history, but this wasn't the best time to be handing him his debut with so much at stake. So the $64,000 dollar question is just why di Mauricio Pochettino make this change, Im not upset at us losing , god knows I have seen that enough times in four decades of following the club and god knows I have seen enough poor managerial decisions and substitutions, so its not that either, it is the nature of how it was made, with so little time remaining it was almost as if the manager didn't care about the result and this is one of the politest comments i heard after the game from other Saints fans. It was as if having shown his contempt for the competition and our chances of glory by putting out a weakened side in the first place, he wanted to make one last gesture just in case anyone was unsure of his motives, perhaps Im overeacting a little and Im sure that this wasn't the case, but it damn well felt like it straight after the game, it felt like we had thrown away our best chance of glory in a decade and you know what, it felt like that because it was TRUE ! Whatever way we want to look at it, whether we consider the line up or the last substitutions just one of those things that happen in football, the TRUTH is we were playing a side who clearly had their minds on other things, they are one of the worst sides in the Premier League with their full first team on the pitch, they were playing their reserves, they were their for the taking and we didn't take them and we should have. Football is a cruel game if Rickie Lambert's horrendous miss had gone in then things would be a lot different, but it didn't and what happened in the last ten minutes took place, Im sorry but I can accept defeat, I can't accept what happened with that substitution, I was angry after the game I am still angry now. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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