As far as I’m aware, in the magnificent run in the previous 8 games, going back to November, which saw us pick up 19/24 points and included a win against Celtic, we played 4-4-2. So why exactly did Calderwood feel the need to switch to 3-5-2 away to Falkirk? And why did he feel he needed to drop Sone Aluko from the starting line-up?
The first question, only the man himself knows the answer to. I do not have the managerial knowledge to debate what advantages and disadvantages switching to 3-5-2 would have, but I can tell you that we never win playing 3-5-2. So why do it?
The answer to the 2nd question is quite unclear too. I know Aluko has not been at his best in the past couple of games but even Aluko on a bad day is better than most other options on their good day, especially Darren Mackie. The age of Falkirk’s defence must have totaled 120+ years old. What chance in hell would McNamara or Pressley have had against Aluko? A better question would be what did Mackie do in the last game/past couple of games to deserve a place in the starting 11 ahead of Aluko?
But before that…Lee Mair? Lee Mair ahead of Aluko? Or Duff? Or Severin?
The timings of the substitutions were somewhat pointless too. It was blatant from about 3 minutes in this was going to be a crap game. Come half-time I’d abandoned RedTV and went to watch the grass grow in my back garden. But the same team came out for the start of the 2nd half. Only with 25 minutes to go, having been 1 down for 10 minutes, did Calderwood finally make a substitution. Another one was made 5 minutes later, and the final one with 10 minutes to go, Tommy Wright replacing Vidal. It annoys me when managers leave it too late for substitutions so when they come on they can make no impact and the game is already lost.
I am yet to see the highlights, so I’ll leave it at that.
These are the games we think back to at the end of the season and think about what could have been.
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