We’ve said this before, but the announcement of the team news ahead of every game is probably when we see most reactions and interactions as fans discuss the relative merits of the starters and subs for each match.
And that was no different last Saturday when Jokull Andresson was given his first start between the sticks having joined the club on-loan from Reading this summer.
“To be honest with you, barring the goal, I thought Jokull did very well at Port Vale,” manager Paul Simpson said. “I’m not going to sit on the fence with this one, Jokull is playing this Saturday, it’s as simple as that.
“I think he deserves a chance to play and I felt it was the time to change it. I’m not suddenly going to change my mind on that after 90 minutes.
“He deserves to play, and we’ve got two days before Saturday but, if he’s fit, he’ll be the one playing.”
“It was the same with Joe Garner,” he added. “He wasn’t involved on Saturday, but I can tell you that there’s no doubt he’ll be involved in some way this weekend, unless something happens with him.
“He wasn’t in the team to play Wigan on Tuesday because I wanted to get more time for Ryan Edmondson, and other players will find they aren’t in the 18 one week but they are the next, that’s just how it’s going to be.
“I said this last weekend, when I looked at the make-up of the bench, Joe wasn’t going to be on the bench so I had a conversation with him to say as a senior player, I’d always do this, do you want to travel as 19th man or do the work we set at home, and he said I’d rather stay at home.
“He’s come in, trained this week, and I didn’t feel as though he needed a game on Tuesday, but I felt Ryan Edmondson did, just to try and get him scoring a goal maybe, getting an opportunity, getting some match minutes, that’s why Edmo played. Nothing else.
“Joe trained, I had a group of 14 players here on Tuesday that I took a session with, Joe was involved. He’s trained again today. There’s absolutely no problem between me and Joe Garner and he’s part of the group at the moment.”
