There have been quite a few players who have been ignored by Simon Rusk, but one omission has raised eyebrows given the game time he had previously enjoyed this season.
Joe Aribo was in the starting line up for Ivan Juric's last game in charge, the defeat at Tottenham Hotspur. But since Simon Rusk took over he has been on the bench for all of his 5 games in charge culminating in Saturday's game against Manchester City.
Given that he hadn't got on the pitch in the previous 4 games, it was a surprise to find that he came on at half time against City, especially given that Will Smallbone was on the bench, a player who like Aribo had found himself benched, but had got off it in 2 of the 4 fixtures.
Bu according to saintsmarching.com Aribo should not be expecting this to be a sign that he is back in favour.
They quote Simon Rusk's after match comments where he said that Aribo's appearance was only because Lesley Ugochukwu had been booked and he had this to say:
"I just felt that there might be a key moment where he (Ugochukwu) really needs to commit to a tackle or to a particular moment and a bit of tiredness later on. I sort of wanted to eliminate that risk, really."
That is a reasonable reason to make the substitution, but probably not at half time, when a player is yellow carded there is always the risk of a second yellow, but you can't hook off every player who gets a yellow card, indeed Flynn Downes was carded in the 56th minute, but he wasn't immediately replaced by Will Smallbone.
Aribo who had featured in all 31 of the games that Saints had played before Rusk took over, scoring 3 times, came on against City and had a battling game suggesting that we could have done with his talents in some of the 4 games before, certainly against both Villa & Fulham where we ran out of steam in the final 20 minutes in both of them.
With Aribo heading into the last year of his contract, the question is whether Saints will keep him next season or cash in now, certainly in the Championship he is a proven player and could be an asset.
If Saints do decide to cash in then first in the queue are apparently his former club, Scottish giants Rangers.
Simon Rusk is working his way through the coaching pecking order and is undoubtably in with a chance of being a successful manager, but the one area he needs to improve is his man management judging by some of his comments after games.
His words after the Leicester game that Mateus Fernandes would be hurting for the coaching staff after he had substituted the midfielder early in the second half at the King Power Stadium was a little bit presumptive of the players thoughts, the comments stuck in the nose of most Saints fans I have spoken to who were at the game.
They felt that the chant was a show of support for Fernandes and a message to the manager that he had made a poor substitution.
Rusk would do well to curb his honesty if he wants to succeed at the highest level, whilst both Aribo & Fernandes are professionals, they will largely take comments such as this with a pinch of salt, but they are human and top players thrive on confidence not being told they were an afterthought.
In his comments Rusk has made both issues about him and not the players, good managers do not do that, they protect their players, they take the criticism on the chin as Rusk should have done after the Leicester game and they big up players such as Aribo who came in from the cold as gave a battling performance that was a big part of the result we achieved.
Rusk will undoubtably return to his first team coaching duties next season and may have to work with both Fernandes & Aribo for a period, that goes for everyone in the squad, he does not need to create division for next season.