JOHN Coleman has defended his decision to replace Jimmy Ryan in the second half of Saturday’s clash with Bradford City, as the Bantams came from behind to win it at the death.
Ryan was eventually awarded the man of the match crown, but Coleman thought that the time was right in the Bradford game to switch things around and so Jimmy who was occupying a right hand side berth, was replaced with the returning Andrew Proctor, a central midfielder.
The Ireland Under 21s International opened the scoring in the game and was bossing the game much to the delight of the Stanley faithful, but when he was replaced there were more than a few eyebrows raised, even more so when Bradford stormed down the right hand side to level the scoring, before eventually snatching the points.
“Much was made of Jimmy Ryan coming off,” said Coleman speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph.
“Jimmy played really well but he was tiring and in the time before he came off he gave the ball away three or four times cheaply.
“He put a lot of work in and he`s a good player. I don`t think the substitution made any difference to us winning the game.
“The way we played, we would have conceded the goals whoever was playing right side of midfield. I think it was unfair on Andy Procter.
“But we have to maybe learn that when we do make changes we have to adapt to them a bit quicker than what we do.
“People always look for blame. We live in a world of blame culture now and if something goes wrong they have to find the reason for it.
“They`re not always the correct reasons. The reason we lost the game on Saturday was because we lost our men at key times in and around the box.
“Maybe after the shellshock of conceding the second goal we got disorganised for the third goal.
“At times when we have a setback we have to learn to be more resilient and batten down the hatches a bit quicker.”
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….all managers make mistakes……