Cardiff City manager Dave Jones has revealed that it was his decision to drop captain Stephen McPhail entirely from the matchday squad against Colchester United.
The FA Cup run has led to incread fixture congestion and several of the players are looking a little jaded after 3 games in a week. For that reason, Jones took the option to completely leave out McPhail in favour of teenager Aaron Ramsey.
Jones also decided to omit McPhail from the bench to allow Riccy Scimeca to continue his rehabilitation and collect some much needed match practise.
The decision to rest McPhail alone was slightly strange especially given McPhail’s improved performance midweek against Hull City. The midfielder started brightly and scored a cracking goal which eventually won the game for City. The entire midfield went AWOL for lengthy periods in the second half – a likely factor in Jones’ decision.
Whilst suprising, this was a pleasant suprise for me. Jones has shown remarkable reluctance to drop McPhail previously but we now have a more than capable replacement in Aaron Ramsey and some experienced back-up and squad depth for situations such as these.
We don’t want to see any Ranieri / Benitez crazy rotation policies at Cardiff City – but this made a nice change.
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