I dunno mate if you're confident a player is better than what we have then you play him. That would be the cautious move not playing the worse players. Coleman could play in a 3 with Patterson at RWB yet anytime Lampard has done that he has chose Kenny to play RB. I think a manager would be under bigger criticism if he kept deliberately picking a worse player for some reason. Surely his coaches would be on his case too
Coleman has very rarely, if ever, played in a 3 at he back, I believe, certainly not this season.
In the one time we played Patterson, which was in a 3, the positionally inept Kenny, that was seen in Germany and in Scotland decided to play right back anyways despite being the right sided centre half.
It completely crowded the space Patterson had. Kenny was almost within about 5 yards of him all game. It was literally astounding.
Steve Clarke ain't the best coach in the world by a distance but if you compare Scotland's right sided centre half tonight, Mctominey's position, to Kenny's that night, you can only come to the conclusion it's either a clueless coach or a clueless player, or both.
Mctominey steps in to the middle of the park, creating an extra midfielder, whilst Kenny moves to right back and marks our own player. Same position. Same formation.
Surely they can see that. I'm sure they can, I'm just not sure they have the bottle to make those direct changes to senior players at this stage of the season though, despite it hurting the team.