Michael Skubala suggested an interesting rule change as his Lincoln City side drew 2-2 away to Stevenage FC yesterday as their title celebrations were delayed until midweek.
That change was induced as Stevenage goalkeeper Filip Marschall went down injured ten minutes into the second half with the game poised at 2-1.
That instantly led to Skubala’s opposite head-coach, Alex Revell, calling his players over to the dugout for a tactical change.
On that moment, the 43-year-old said: “They’re doing a tactical change, it’s a time-out isn’t it, maybe they should just introduce time-outs into football.
“But they went to a back five to try and combat us, because we were really starting to get on top of them and then after that, it was a back five against a back five.
“It became a bit of a grind from there, but we managed to grind it out and Rob Street saved the day.”
That rule change isn’t something new proposed in football, with the ball spending less than 60 minutes in play throughout the average Premier League game.
While the Lincoln City head-coach has accepted that it may be apart of football, is his proposal actually a bad solution in the long-term?
On the thinking behind the changes, Skubala said: “We needed, more intensity, more of us because it didn’t look like us so we made some changes and changed the shape to get more intensity and more width.
“That allowed us to get more pressure on them because I thought we’d just started a bit slow and a bit sloppy in moments.
“But when we’re 26 games unbeaten, you’re going to have moments and you have to get through them and I thought they did that well second half, because it looked more like us.”
Despite that, the 43-year-old still had to wait 47 minutes to reap the rewards of his changes when Rob Street struck home his left footed volley in the 92nd minute.
After that goal the Imps now require just one point to secure the SkyBet League One title and they will get the chance to do that on Tuesday night away to Doncaster Rovers.
Ahead of that clash, he said: “We need to keep focussed, keep disciplined, keep trying to go after the points and see if we can win that game.”