6. Do you think Ivan didn’t play against Swansea because we didn’t want to risk an injury ahead of his first Ukraine call-up?
No, I don’t think so. I think we’ve got four midfielders the management team believe are Championship quality, and we’ll see them rotated to a degree. We saw that with Conor McGrandles coming off on Saturday.
One of our best spells was in the last 10 minutes, when we had neither Conor nor Ivan Varfolomeev on the pitch. For any undue criticism of Tom Bayliss, or concern that Yunus Konak isn’t quite up to speed with the Lincoln City way, I think they both showed what they could offer.
Maybe there was an element of doing right by Ivan, but I don’t think that would have been the sole driver. If we’d felt we needed him at any point on Saturday, I think we’d definitely have put him in. It’s his first call-up, but it’s only Andrei Coubis’ second for Romania, so you could make the same argument about him, and he played.
I think we’ll do what’s right for us. However, the Ukraine call-up clearly means a lot to Ivan, and given what has been happening in his country for years, I think there may be a deeper sense of national pride in representing it. Ukraine has undergone a vicious onslaught, and I can understand that deeper tie to the call-up.
If it were Oisin with us, stepping up from Ireland Under-21s to the senior squad, and we had four other players who could play in his position, perhaps we’d say, “We’ll let you sit this one out.” It’s possible, and it’s a decent question, but I don’t think protecting Ivan ahead of international duty would have been the main reason.
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