Quote Originally Posted by dml1954 View Post
I think Page makes some pretty strange decisions at times, which shows a naivety and lack of experience. On this occasion it paid off in the end but could easily have back fired and against a more committed side who hadn't already qualified easily, probably would have. Not putting any subs on against Belgium, until very late, was odd and a big risk. It could have lead to a defeat and serious injury for one or more of the players, especially Ramsey and Moore, as they were all running on empty at the end. Also, continuing to play a League One midfielder (Morrell), who is of limited ability to say the least, is another strange one. Wilson was the obvious option, who had a good game against Belarus but sat on the bench for 90 minutes this time. People moan about Vaulks being a headless chicken but that is basically all that Morrell is and he was lucky not to pick up a second yellow card in the second half. He tries to make up for his lack of pace with constant niggly fouling and he was lucky that the ref was in such a lenient mood this time.
I agree with this, our midfield were shattered from about the 60th minute onward whilst Moore was completely spent

I think there's a degree of learning on the job from Page and he's getting better with time. For instance against Denmark he was completely outdone tactically by the simple move of pushing Christensen forward, compare that to the Czech away game and the Belgium home game where our tactics were spot on and a little more flexible