Though I'm certainly not one of those calling for Roy's head, I feel that criticism for him over his attitude to substitutions is entirely fair.

I can't have been the only one to make a joke about us conceding a late goal long before it happened, the script became grimly predictable once it was clear that no subs were forthcoming.

Whether or not you subscribe to the ludicrous assertion that we had no options on the bench, consider for a minute that we will inevitably have injuries this season and many of these players be need to play a part. Imagine the psychological and physical affect that the manager repeatedly showing that he has no faith in them must be doing.

We'll have absolutely no right to criticise the likes of Riedewald etc when they do finally get a game and are miles from match sharpness.

The gameplan yesterday was correct and we were the better team for large swathes of the game but if it was so blindingly obvious to thousands of supporters what was going to happen and what we needed to do, it does concern me that the man in charge couldn't see it. It was a real missed opportunity and after our next four games, there is now a very strong chance we'll find ourselves in the bottom three.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

Many have mentioned that our bench didn't possess the quality that Everton had on theirs. Whilst this is true the above post has it spot on, it's not just about the quality it's about getting fresh legs on in place of players who have been running their arses off for the previous 60-70 minutes which can make a difference

"It's ok postman , he'll lick you to death" "That isn't really that comforting , I still end up dead !!"

I understand where you are coming and your argument is valid.

However if Hodgson had introduced fresh legs and we still went on to lose the game there might of been cries of woe saying that we were doing perfectly well with the starting 11 and heading for a creditable draw so why did Hodgson feel the need to change things ?

It seems with Hodgson he has a 'Plan A' which he has worked on with his players in great detail and unless there are injuries, he will stick with it unless we are behind or he is happy to take the point at an away game.His teams are all about shape,organisation and discipline and he doesn't appear to be one to take risks which could scupper a good result.Maybe a lack of options influences his thinking.

My concern used to be we had a paper thin squad with little or no depth. This year that is not the case.

Roy appears to favour a consistent team. The shirt is yours to lose. Again fair enough, but that now seems almost to extend to on a match day we have 11 and the rest. A question almost of tactics. Here is my 11 and this is how I want them to play. This is v old fashioned. Modern sports will look at the bench and say this is my team of (say) 16 and this is how I will deploy them. You note in training that a player switched off around the hour mark so you pick a sub to drop in at that stage, houses a forward gets tired around 70 mind and have a trained up replacement on the bench.

We set up tactically with a first 11 and that seems to be it. We seem to only bring on subs if we have to and they seem to sometimes struggle to fit it.

An example. Was delighted to see Connor back on the bench. He looked fit and hungry in the Dulwich friendly, but even though we needed goals we left it too late (and the whole team seemed set up to play without a big man up front.) So tactically we focused on the 11 not 16.

Our inflexibility could be our undoing.

I think you're probably right about Roy's thinking and his methods, but games change massively in the last 10 minutes - we know that more than most. He would have known that Everton would likely change things to try and win the game. It's naive to think our starting 11 would be ale to cope with that. Regardless of how good they are - fresh legs against legs that have been running for 80-minutes isn't a good match-up.

Still, this seems to be Roy's way - he's not going to get 'experimental' at his age. Whether it's because he thinks it's the best approach (I don't) or belligerence around the squad not being good enough aimed at the owners, it's costing us points and will cost us in injuries/fatigue when players are run into the ground. We saw at the end of last season that some players were dead on their feet because they were knackered from too many minutes.

Perhaps someone on here could explain the point of Ray Lewington??

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World