Gary O’Neil
GARY O’Neil outlined his reasons for bringing Kieffer Moore back into the starting XI, admitting it was “tough” to leave out Ryan Christie. Prior to Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Brentford, O’Neil had named attacking midfielder Christie in his side for all his matches as interim boss so far. But he swapped out the Scot for Moore, making his first start under O’Neil, as he partnered Dominic Solanke in attack. Christie was introduced as a second-half substitute for Moore, with neither player able to make the breakthrough, despite various changes of system in the game.
Gary O Neil said: “Firstly, it was a real, tough call leaving out Ryan Christie, because he’s been brilliant for me and I love him. I love what he gives. But then Kieffer I felt could help us. Obviously Brentford are a physical team. I felt he could help us from set plays. I thought trying to get him and Dom on the pitch would give us some attacking threat. And the introduction of Ryan Christie was because we were struggling to progress up the pitch enough with any control. Too many turnovers. So I thought Ryan Christie would help us. Kieffer Moore was up there and we didn’t manage to progress with the ball often enough to use his threat really. Although he did look a threat when we managed to put the ball in the box to be fair.”
Discussing the formation change from the start, with Philip Billing operating from a slightly wider role on the left than in recent weeks,
Gary O’Neil added: “When you’re trying to put a team together, you’re trying to get Kieffer Moore in it, because you think he can bring something, it’s then difficult to find a shape that fits everybody in. (Saturday) was actually a similar shape to what we’ve used before with the ball, but we weren’t good enough with the ball to show that. Phil was planned to be inside the pitch as a number eight with the ball and then obviously someone has to get out and do the right-back and Phil knew that was going to be what it was. And then he wasn’t as influential as he has been, but I don’t think that’s down to Phil. I think we needed to be better with the ball so we could find him in certain moments and to be fair he stuck to his task. But I went back to the same shape, but Ryan Christie off the side and Phil was a 10 with Dom at the end. I just felt (Saturday) was a good one for Kieffer and he did help us with defending set plays, which was a big plus.”
