The art of effective substitutions is arguably one of the key factors which separate a promotion-winning manager from a merely competent one. At the moment, Curle is doing a very competent job, but our promotion bid is being hampered by poor substitutions which are caused partly by a lack of like-for-like tactical foresight and partly by insufficient squad depth in the attacking positions.
Curle was trying to do something different with the substitutions today, but it backfired massively. He says that 'we brought players on to help us get forward and retain possession' (i.e. Smith and Warburton), which is probably a response to previous criticisms of his 'shutting-up-shop' approach in games like Crawley and Bradford. However, Smith coming on necessitated a destabilising change in the system (with the highly competent Hariman coming off) and then Warburton coming on for McWilliams deprived us of our most effective high-pressing midfielder, meaning that Morecambe had time to play things out from the back. Morevover, bringing on Hall Johnson for Williams on 64 minutes arguably sent the wrong unconscious psychological message to a Cobblers team which Curle has berated constantly for a tendency to sit back.
In the short term, he would be better off making like-for-like substitutions (e.g. Pollack for Adams and Oliver for Williams) rather than messing with a successful system. When - or if - McCormack is back then hopefully he will provide another option: a calm head to be brought in for the last 20 minutes of games when we need to see things out. (I actually think this is the best way for us to use McCormack throughout the season; he's clearly not going to be up to 90 minutes very often and Lines and Turnbull have been excellent as our starting holding midfielders.)
In the long term, he needs to tackle the lack of squad depth in the attacking positions. At the moment, we have no real replacements for Adams and Hoskins and Oliver and Smith are too similar to Williams to offer a genuine alternative. Curle needs to address this by signing a couple of pacey forwards/attacking midfielders who can come on against sides who are chasing the game and give them something to worry about by stretching the game on the counter-attack. It would be even better if these players were capable of adopting a high press in the manner of Hoskins and McWilliams. Loanees would be a perfectly acceptable option to fulfil this kind of role IMO.
Can’t add a single thing to that. Sometimes as a manager in any industry you have to hold your hands up and admit you got it wrong. That’s not a weakness, it’s a strength. I hope Curle has the Jacobs to look at himself when he carries out the inevitable inquest on the Morecambe game? The view from my laptop indicated the players did very little wrong?
