Kevin Nolan reveals reasons for not making earlier substitutions against Rotherham
Jack Vale’s early injury and the absence of key players were among the main reasons for Kevin Nolan’s decision not to make earlier substitutions during Saturday’s defeat to Rotherham.
Vale’s first half injury put a spanner in the works and scuppered Nolan’s plan to keep Ethan Wheatley fresh for the second 45, with the striker forced to play well over an hour despite featuring for England Under-20s the previous evening.
That meant Nolan did not have another senior forward on the bench and he had also used up one of his three substitution windows. He did make a change after Rotherham’s equaliser, replacing Kamarai Swyer with Michael Jacobs, but the visitors went and won it through Josh Benson’s 88th minute free-kick.
Nolan did have Jordan Willis and Joe Wormleighton on the bench, and the latter came on at the end, but the likes of Cameron McGeehan, Max Dyche, Michael Forbes, Jack Burroughs, Tom Eaves and Elliott List were all missing.
"We obviously didn’t expect Valey to come off so early and we thought we would be able to put Ethan on later in the game to freshen it up and give us something different,” explained Nolan. “He wasn’t meant to play so many minutes after playing for England Under-20s on Friday.
"Crackers coming on can give the crowd a bit of a lift in those difficult moments but because of the way it worked out, you look at the bench and you have two very young lads on the bench (17-year-old academy players Joziah Barnett and Ollie Evans) and I didn’t want to put them in that environment. They are both in a good moment and they are doing really well and that’s why they were selected on the bench, but if they go on and sink, it could be a struggle for them to get back to where they were.
"It is difficult but I felt it was a bit like the Blackpool game where they came out really well in the second half and we made the two subs with Thorniley and Burroughs and I felt that got us the game back and we got a bit more control and we got on the ball and we landed on second balls.
"But on Saturday we just didn’t do our basics right and what I didn’t like was the other side of the game. I can accept making bad decisions but we lost first and second contacts and that gave Rotherham something to build on.
"I’ve shown the lads that and they’ve all accepted it and what we have to do now is go back to the drawing board and look to put it right this weekend.”