61 Substitutions Made This Season

[Perryqhill]

Not at all. Le Bris has done a very good job but is not immune to critique.

As evidenced by this thread it was flagged months ago that lack of squad rotation was going to become an issue and surprise surprise, it comes home to roost at the most crucial part of the season.

Mundle for example plays 45 minutes against Hull in his first game back and then starts 5 of the next 6 games after being out for 14 weeks with a hamstring injury.

The reoccurrence of that exact same injury against WBA is just a coincidence I suppose?

Le Bris' lack of any sort of squad/minutes management across the course of the season is absolutely a valid critique.

It's been obvious for a while. People will always stick up for it whilst results and performances are good, even when performances drop they will and then bang it when results drop off people will talk en masses about it and we're just about reaching that stage now.

We learnt a couple of years ago with Neil and then Mowbray that at this level you need to make changes to keep intensity up, even if at times you maybe don't have the depth of quality. We saw it affect us that season playing against sides who done it earlier on during games and then it affected us with injuries and players bang out of form as the season progressed. We didn't maybe have the numbers to cope as well then.

This season it probably didn't effect us early on too much as we gained lot of momentum and our quality was that much higher, though late on in games we were conceding a bit.

But we've seen so many injuries now and some woefully lacking form with teenagers playing 30+ plus games barely being rested and still some excuse the lack of subs and rotations on the injuries or lack of depth. The irony kinda lost on them that some of the injuries and lack of depth is because of the lack of subs and rotation.

He’s obviously not making subs as he thinks it’s the best way for results and statistically he’s right, but it could be tweaked I reckon

If we get promoted this way then it's job done. But I think we've crucially ran out of form and have too many injuries at the point it's really going to matter.

 

[The Situation]

Of all managers who have lasted the season thus far, Le Bris ranks 3rd lowest for substitutions made.

I know the response will be "the only stat that matters is the table", but if you want to look a bit deeper into why we seem to pick up so many injuries, minutes distribution would be a good place to start.

There's a cohort of 13-14 players who get flogged to death and not enough minutes distributed amongst the rest of the squad until it becomes too late.

It was an issue last year too as explored earlier in the thread (and yes I know we got promoted and that this season has been beyond all expectations, but that doesn't mean we can't look a bit deeper into other aspects) and IMO is no coincidence when you look at our injury rate, especially in the second half of the last couple of seasons.

 

[andy78]

Of all managers who have lasted the season thus far, Le Bris ranks 3rd lowest for substitutions made.

I know the response will be "the only stat that matters is the table", but if you want to look a bit deeper into why we seem to pick up so many injuries, minutes distribution would be a good place to start.

There's a cohort of 13-14 players who get flogged to death and not enough minutes distributed amongst the rest of the squad until it becomes too late.

It was an issue last year too as explored earlier in the thread (and yes I know we got promoted and that this season has been beyond all expectations, but that doesn't mean we can't look a bit deeper into other aspects) and IMO is no coincidence when you look at our injury rate, especially in the second half of the last couple of seasons.

Not looked into it but we'd probably see that it was a similar case at Lorient, as they tailed off in the second half of seasons too.

 

[rentaghost]

Of all managers who have lasted the season thus far, Le Bris ranks 3rd lowest for substitutions made.

I know the response will be "the only stat that matters is the table", but if you want to look a bit deeper into why we seem to pick up so many injuries, minutes distribution would be a good place to start.

There's a cohort of 13-14 players who get flogged to death and not enough minutes distributed amongst the rest of the squad until it becomes too late.

It was an issue last year too as explored earlier in the thread (and yes I know we got promoted and that this season has been beyond all expectations, but that doesn't mean we can't look a bit deeper into other aspects) and IMO is no coincidence when you look at our injury rate, especially in the second half of the last couple of seasons.

So - we got promoted last season and hammered all expectations this season.

Surely this is cast iron evidence of keeping your best players playing as many minutes as possible and that our subs are a significant drop off from our strongest eleven.

As it happens prior to Afcon and at a time where we didn’t have many injuries and as a result more depth I recall Le Bris getting a lot of praise in here for his use of substitutes. Out of curiosity I wouldn’t mind knowing from August to Afcon whether that pattern was still the same.

 

[The Situation]

Not looked into it but we'd probably see that it was a similar case at Lorient, as they tailed off in the second half of seasons too.

I thought the same but found it actually wasn't:

148 substitutions in his last season at Lorient which was the 7th most in Ligue 1.

145 the season beforehand which was 10th.

 

[SAFC Wilks]

Of all managers who have lasted the season thus far, Le Bris ranks 3rd lowest for substitutions made.

I know the response will be "the only stat that matters is the table", but if you want to look a bit deeper into why we seem to pick up so many injuries, minutes distribution would be a good place to start.

There's a cohort of 13-14 players who get flogged to death and not enough minutes distributed amongst the rest of the squad until it becomes too late.

It was an issue last year too as explored earlier in the thread (and yes I know we got promoted and that this season has been beyond all expectations, but that doesn't mean we can't look a bit deeper into other aspects) and IMO is no coincidence when you look at our injury rate, especially in the second half of the last couple of seasons.

It was the lowest when you made the thread last season.

He’s rotating more now.

 

[Roadhouse]

In his two seasons so far he's clearly had players that he just doesn't fancy, although he could have made more subs last season imo. We'll see next season once we build the squad up whether he is inclined to make more subs.

 

[Weremuthe]

In his two seasons so far he's clearly had players that he just doesn't fancy, although he could have made more subs last season imo. We'll see next season once we build the squad up whether he is inclined to make more subs.

Surely a fresh player coming on as a sub is as good or not better than a knackered favourite for the last 15 minutes - it might also ease the number of injuries we pick up.

 

[chriswallace85]

I'd like to see a stat about how many threads @The Situation posts where he's not being a negative nelly stirring up trouble.


Bit of a daft stat I think. Too many factors to consider.

Surely a fresh player coming on as a sub is as good or not better than a knackered favourite for the last 15 minutes - it might also ease the number of injuries we pick up.

Not if there's a massive gulf in quality and experience, which let's face it, there often is between our first XI and the lads named on the bench.

Of all managers who have lasted the season thus far, Le Bris ranks 3rd lowest for substitutions made.

I know the response will be "the only stat that matters is the table", but if you want to look a bit deeper into why we seem to pick up so many injuries, minutes distribution would be a good place to start.

There's a cohort of 13-14 players who get flogged to death and not enough minutes distributed amongst the rest of the squad until it becomes too late.

It was an issue last year too as explored earlier in the thread (and yes I know we got promoted and that this season has been beyond all expectations, but that doesn't mean we can't look a bit deeper into other aspects) and IMO is no coincidence when you look at our injury rate, especially in the second half of the last couple of seasons.

We've only got two players in the top 50 players with the most minutes this season. Roefs and Hume.

We've used 29 players this season - joint fourth highest.

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We've made 112 subs this season - the 4th lowest, not the 3rd.

Man City, with the squad depth they have, have made 117. Liverpool 119. Man Utd 121.

Everton have made the least with 99, and Fulham the most with 141.

The average is 124, median 126.5, mode 119, 134, 139.

We give an average of 20 minutes per sub - the 4th highest in the league.


I don't think there's an awful lot to read into this.

 

[rentaghost]

Which is by far the lowest made by managers who have a comparable amount of games under their belt this season.

It's actually lower than some managers who have already been and gone (e.g. Walters, Harris and a few others).

Wilder for example has made 108 subs, Corberan 104, Farke 97, Parker 86.

I know the argument will be that we are higher in the league than most other teams so we're doing something right, but are we leaving points behind due to a lack of changes?

I'm definitely being won around by this line of thinking. Yet again RLB was outthought by the opposition manager by leaving it far too late to make any substitutions while Howe was much more proactive looking to change the game and use fresh legs around the hour mark to win the game.