Cotts is getting a bit of a coating over the substitutions yesterday, but is that fair? The substitutions have various purposes that I feel are vital to this group of players, firstly its getting bench players a bit of game time, this is absolutely VITAL in keeping squad morale high amongst all the players, you can see Cotterill is trying to share it out as much as possible amongst the regular subs, any of you who have sat on a bench will know the feeling of being 3-1 up and thinking 'get me on boss, we're 3-1 up it's job done, I can see this out' secondly Cotts would have thought it vital to get fresh legs on especially when it went 3-2 as the momentum turns to the trailing side. bringing the subs on should have packed midfield and given added energy in there, trouble is changing shape is a gamble at any point and even more so when the other side is gathering game momentum, those 'settling in' minutes weaken any team at a vital point in the game. It failed pretty spectacularly this time, and will have the added effect of making EVERYONE nervous the next time we need to do it, I hope we can all recover from the disappointment quickly. I feel the MK Dons game next week has now become a season defining moment,if we win this one we will undoubtedly kick on. we lose it may be a different story confidence wise. I am in Portgal next weekend for a stag night for what may be the most important game of the season..
