Carlos Rowes back on substitute plan!
IT might have gone unnoticed to the vast majority of Huddersfield Town fans.
Restricted to watching on iFollow, probably only those inside the John Smith’s Stadium would have picked up on the fact Aaron Rowe looked poised to make his fifth league appearance of the season against Reading.
The 20-year-old had got ready and was warming up near the byline, ready to come on for Town in the dying stages of the game with Carlos Corberan’s side trailing 2-1.
But after a long wait, Rowe then put on a green training bib.
Then a little while after, he disappeared back into the stands to sit with the rest of the Town subs.
Eventually, the Terriers did make their second change of the afternoon, but it was youngster Kieran Phillips, not Rowe, who was introduced. Phillips replaced centreback Rarmani Edmonds-Green as Town went for a late leveller.
Corberan and his coaches clearly had a change of heart, so what was the reasoning behind it?
“At that moment we wanted to put Aaron Rowe on the pitch,” explained Corberan.
“We planned to use him (Rowe) instead of Isaac Mbenza because Isaac started to have problems and feel something in the knee.
“Isaac sometimes is able to change this situation and so then we were thinking the option with Aaron was more defensive than to continue playing with a winger like Isaac, especially after he had the chance (on goal) that he had.
“In that moment the most offensive option we had was to change one centre-back and to play with one striker more.
“We wanted to see if we could create more options but it was difficult.
“Sometimes when you want to change a result you need to provoke situations.”
Town now have a full week of rest, recovery and training ahead of the visit of Plymouth Argyle in the FA Cup third round on Saturday.