Alcaraz or Stones

royalblue66 · March 21, 2015

Alcaraz or Stones, hard choice.

ijjysmith · March 21, 2015

Fit enough for the bench fit enought to play.

Say, Alcaraz or Jags had got injured after 4 minutes, do you think Stones wouldn't have come on?!

Ridiculous decision.

Khalekan · March 21, 2015

Abraders said:
50% stones for 45 minutes would've been better than 100% Alcaraz for 90.

Don't put him on the bench if he's actually unavailable.

Better yet.....if the lad is under the weather, why fetch him all the way to Ukraine in the first place?

He would revive better in his own home.

Woolly Blue · March 21, 2015

ijjysmith said:
Fit enough for the bench fit enought to play.

In reality, that's often not the case though.

Many a time a team will have someone on the bench who isn't really fit, certainly isn't fit enough to start and you hope you don't have to bring them on. They're on the bench because the manager thinks a 50 / 60 /70% fit player is a better option than anything else they have available. There's an argument to be made that Martinez should have handled Distin a lot better than he did over the last few months, so he could have had him on the bench rather than Stones, but that's a different issue.

ijjysmith · March 21, 2015

Woolly Blue said:
In reality, that's often not the case though.

Many a time a team will have someone on the bench who isn't really fit, certainly isn't fit enough to start and you hope you don't have to bring them on. They're on the bench because the manager thinks a 50 / 60 /70% fit player is a better option than anything else they have available. There's an argument to be made that Martinez should have handled Distin a lot better than he did over the last few months, so he could have had him on the bench rather than Stones, but that's a different issue.

Maybe. But as I said, if one of our centre backs had got injured would Stones have come on?

Of course he would.

hktoffee · March 21, 2015

Stones was fit enough otherwise he won't be on the bench. Martinez fk it up by starting his lovechild Alcaraz. Poor poor decision.

D410 · March 21, 2015

Managers should unite players not divide them.

Woolly Blue · March 21, 2015

ijjysmith said:
Maybe. But as I said, if one of our centre backs had got injured would Stones have come on?

Of course he would.

Big difference between starting someone by choice and being forced into it by an injury.

Leatherbrick · March 21, 2015

Surely playin stones from the start and givin us a proper footing in the game would have been better than playing that other dope and ending up chasing the game from the get-go???!?!?

Fearthainn · March 21, 2015

This needs a poll I think.

ijjysmith · March 21, 2015

Woolly Blue said:
Big difference between starting someone by choice and being forced into it by an injury.

Of course.

But if he's fit enough to come on and play in an emergency then he's fit enough to play whenever he's needed.

mccole · March 21, 2015

Stones or Alcaraz?

A choice between a Rock or A Hard Place

Azzurri · March 21, 2015

Agreeing with @ijjysmith here. If Stones wasn't fit enough to come on in that situation he shouldn't have been there. How much worse could Alcaraz's performance have got?

I can understand having a player like Mirallas on the bench unfit because even if he can't last more than 15 minutes that might be all he needs to change a game at the death. Centre backs don't do that.

If you're going to have Stones there in case Alcaraz gets injured you've got to do it at half time anyway, because he probably would have done us a favour going off injured with no replacement, and I mean that.

summerisle · March 21, 2015

Alcatraz stoning :

Christiffa25 · March 21, 2015

The worst thing is IF stones wasn't fit enough to come on H/T (which I find hard to believe) he could of easily dropped Barry back to CB and brought gibson on.

He's just clueless.