Football Food For Thought / Frank Gregan / 06 March 2008 /

Frank Gregan shares his managerial experience with us and the lesson is, "Choose you substitutions carefully or you could be caught with your trousers down!"

"You don't know what you're doing!" That is the chant a manager hates hearing when he makes a substitution. Funny thing is, despite the opinion of the masses the manager tends to know exactly what he is doing. There is nothing worse than watching a manager who is under pressure and out of favour trying to change a game and getting the bird from his own supporters.

Probably the worst case I saw was at Coventry during their relegation season when they were at home to Everton. Gordon Strachan was copping a heap of flak before he took the winger David Thompson, a crowd favourite, off. When the board went up showing Thompson's number the booing increased fourfold and the chant broke out. Strachan pointed to his hamstring and showed it to all sections of the crowd indicating that the player was injured. It was sad to see someone as confident as Strachan justifying a substitution but indicates that managers are conscious of the supporter's discontent.

It's often a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. There have been a number of intriguing substitutions of late that highlight this. Bolton's right back Gretar Steinsson got the shepherds crook just before half time on Sunday after having allowed Ryan Babel the freedom of the Reebok Stadium for 42 minutes. It could be argued that he should have come off earlier. Mid way through the first half it was apparent that Babel was always going to be the winner in that individual battle. He had more space than NASA and Gerrard was enjoying feeding the ball in behind the stricken right back and turning the Bolton defence. You had to enjoy the way that Steinsson limped off as if he required surgery. The only thing that could have helped him keep up with Babel was a Harley Davidson!

Kevin Nolan then had to come off at half time and Gary Megson's options had gone. Once you have used two substitutes early you are in trouble, you can't put the third one on until late or you run the risk of picking up an injury and having to run with ten men due to your lack of foresight. Similarly though, if you are only one goal behind and your third substitution is a striker or a winger that could change the game you probably should take that risk. Damned if you do, damned if you don't! Hindsight is a great thing and I bet the one substitution that Gary Megson would have loved to have made would have been Jaaskelainen in the 11th minute!

There are some interesting bets around involving Bolton at the moment. I like the [2.84] available on them to beat Sporting Lisbon tonight, my thinking being no matter how good the Portuguese's scouting has been the Bolton style will still be a shock to their players. I don't think they will go down and I will be tempted to lay them to be relegated should they have another set back throughout the season and their odds fall below the [3.0] mark. I'll probably sell my [1.55] back recommendation that I gave on Fulham going down at around [1.3] in order to fund that lay. I also think that they have a better than even chance of finishing above Reading and consequently in the season match betting I would have a wager if I could get odds of [2.1] matched.

One of the strangest and to a certain extent bravest substitutions I have seen for a long time was made by Juande Ramos during the Carling Cup Final. In the 12th minute of extra time he took off Robbie Keane and replaced him with Younes Kaboul. A striker off and a centre half on with eighteen minutes plus two sets of stoppages to go. It was obviously a successful attempt at shutting up shop. However, it meant Ramos had no substitutes left and that he had taken off one of his first choice penalty takers had the match gone that way. It also invited incessant pressure from a Chelsea attack that until then had been well marshalled. Tottenham just couldn't get out and the second period of extra time was wave after wave of Chelsea pressure. Chelsea had one chance in extra time prior to the substitution, they had seven chances following it.

Even during the rare times that Spurs gained controlled possession they had nowhere to go. Woodgate for example, would play a decent ball up to Berbatov who would show good hold up play with his back to goal on the half way line. Berbatov would roll it back to Jennas and that was the end of that. There was no "third man running," the second striker working the channels and providing an out ball for Jennas. He invariably had to go square and Chelsea would re-gain possession high up the park and be able to sustain the pressure. Spurs didn't concede and went on to lift the trophy, what a great substitution! That would not have been the case had Chelsea been just a little more composed in front of goal, Ramos would still be answering questions about the substitution today!

The funniest substitution I have ever seen was one that I made away to Morecombe in the Conference a few years back. We were hanging on for a result and two of the allocated four minutes injury time had been played when the physio signalled that my winger could not continue. The winger left the field on the far side and I was down to ten men, no time for a warm up, my last sub was thrown straight on. The fourth official got the board up almost immediately as the ball went out for a throw in. My sub was busy getting his kit off and in his haste took his tracksuit bottoms and his shorts off in one. He ran on to the field naked from the bottom of his shirt to the top of his socks, not a pretty sight. We got our result, the Morecombe players were too busy laughing to cause us any problems!

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