Late substitutions

[lamby]

Watching the last few Euro games I've bee struck by the number of subs brought on by the winning team after the official 90 mins are up. Surely this potentially does more harm than good when defending at set pieces etc. The ref adds time on for each one so not sure where any gain is or am I missing something?

 

[Itchen Masack]

Well it might be my imagination, but it seems that refs dont add any time on in these big tournament games. Once they've announced how many added minutes, the games tend to finish bang on time. Guess this is either to prevent any controversies or its all completely in my head

 

[Saintletico]

Depends what the substitution is - oxo for welbeck at the end yesterday made a lot of sense because he has the pace and enthusiasm to pressure the ball and help the team to push up and not sit too deep. And with him and walcott on we very nearly fashioned a winner right at the death. Would have liked to have seen Jones on at the death to help us out with set pieces, as Sweden had such a threat from Melberg, Olsson, Ibra, Lustig and Elmander. Alls well that ends well though!

 

[saintlyhero]

Breaking momentum and slowing the game down is also a reason for late changes

 

[pass the football]

Breaking momentum and slowing the game down is also a reason for late changes

Yep. Once you have a stoppage for a sub it usually takes a good minute or so for the team trying to catch up to regain their dominance.

 

[st_brendy]

Yep. Once you have a stoppage for a sub it usually takes a good minute or so for the team trying to catch up to regain their dominance.

Yes, just as when a player from the winning side feigns injury to waste a good 60 seconds.

Can't remember who it was we were playing, but there was a game at St Marys towards end of the season (where we were presumably losing, but maybe drawing I guess) where we were getting a real head of steam up and really pushing for the goal we needed, but with very limited time left. One of the opposition players then played the moment though, wasted a good few seconds whilst he was "injured", and once play restarted again we never looked like getting that goal any more.

 

[Qwerty]

Well, the ref won't add any time on for substitutions unless they are excessive. The whole 30 seconds per sub thing is a pundit invention unfortunately. Plus it breaks up the play and gives your players a breather. My only thought to people who complain about time wasting tactics is that you kind of earn the right to waste time by being ahead in the game.