John Yems had publicly asked for Leeds United’s half of the weekend’s FA Cup cash, but he drove home tonight with possibly even more notes than he could have anticipated.
The Whites went above and beyond. Scrap the third-round cash, take one of the finest days of your careers and enjoy a few more coins in the fourth round.
Before the match, Marcelo Bielsa had said: “I feel it’s healthy for the bigger teams to be able to help the smaller teams, to be generous with the smaller teams.”
Few could have suspected that would lead to the invitation Bielsa delivered the Crawley dugout at the half-time break.
It may be more accurate to even say it was delivered before the match, such was the planning Bielsa had given to his substitutions.
It’s pretty clear Liam Cooper, Pascal Struijk and Rodrigo were always going to get a breather at the half-time mark.
Bielsa declined to use the full allocation of substitutes he was permitted because he already knew, roughly, who he was going to use and when.
Cooper is perhaps understandable given he is building his fitness after injury in readiness for Premier League action next weekend.
Even then, there’s the argument you play him with the under-23s tomorrow if you plan to deliberately give him 45 minutes.
If we’re allowing Cooper, with five subs permitted overall, it’s hard to understand booking in the changes for Struijk and Rodrigo without any regard for what may go on in that first half.
At 0-0, with the Whites far from hemming the hosts in, the match was not won and they needed their best players on the pitch to get the job done.
Sure, have this plan in place for a United lead of two or three goals, but this match was in the balance and needed regulars.
We’re still six days away from the Brighton & Hove Albion match too, Rodrigo and Struijk were not in desperate need of rests.
Crawley would have been delighted to get back to their dressing room with the match goalless at half-time, perhaps wondering how long they could keep out United.
The substitutions changed the tone of the game and got Crawley tails up. They were an invitation, a chink of light the hosts needed to know they had a chance.
Youngsters Oliver Casey and Jack Jenkins, making his debut, did themselves justice on the day and haven’t generated too many complaints with their performances.
It’s the manner of the changes and the message they sent out to Crawley. Experience was traded for youth, the line-up was disrupted and it let Yems’s side know Bielsa was not giving this the same approach he gives the league.
