Quote Roofaldo="Roofaldo"Yeah, but it's just gamesmanship. If you're gearing up to face a team that's gonna have players x,y,z in it then you're going to set up to play against them. Then at the last minute you're told it's not x,y,z but a,b,c then that means you've got to do a reworking of your plans to compensate. Throw a little distraction and disorientation into the opponents game plan.
Fergie at Man Utd does it and it works pretty well for him'"
Oh aye, I'm not saying it's a bad thing that we're doing it. I've said a few times before that it works well when Saints have done it in the past. Whenever they came out and said Cunningham, Wellens or another quite key player were out for x amount of time, I'd always recommend you half that for the correct amount.
When the player was back then they'd sometimes leave it until the last minute to include them. Purposely including an injured player in the 19 man squad, who would then pull out later due to his injury, and be replaced with the returning star. Giving the minimum preparation time for the opposition.
Perhaps not in the spirit of it all, but perfectly within the rules so if it works, I see no problem with it.
