O Neill said: This cry that Cole Palmer should have started the game – I have been involved in thousands of substitutions, both good and bad. They’re good when they work, they’re bad when they don’t work – it’s as simple as this here.
There is a thought process that goes into it, and I think that these people just think that Gareth Southgate just decides at some moment in the game, ‘Oh yeah, do you know what I’ll do? I’ll please everybody, I’ll put a substitution on.’ That’s not the case.
But these are trite comments, they seriously are. They’re vapid, there’s no question about it. They’re almost like soundbites, as if this is what people want to hear, this idea that somebody should have been on at a certain stage of the game.
