SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Head coach Theodore Whitmore is demanding an immediate and positive reaction from his Reggage Boyz when they face El Salvador here at the Cuscatlan Stadium at 7:00 pm (8:00 pm Jamaica time) today.

Former Reggae Boy star Whitmore lost his unbeaten home record as head coach last Friday night at the Montego Bay Sports Complex when his Boyz turned in a lacklustre performance and were duly beaten 2-0 by South American outfit Venezuela.

This is possibly the last international ‘A’ friendly for the Jamaicans ahead of their participation in this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup in the USA, and Whitmore would like the players to exhibit the kind of consistency and quality which resulted in them retaining the Digicel Caribbean Cup in Martinique at the backend of last year.

A leg injury suffered by central defender Jermaine Taylor on Friday night, exposed the lack of depth in the squad, and has necessitated a rethink of Whitmore’s favoured 3-4-3 formation, as well as personnel for today’s engagement.

Taylor was ruled out of the trip, and from the 19 players here, Keneil Moodie is the only other central defender in the squad and in an effort to maintain balance, Whitmore has opted for a 4-4-2 formation for today.

As a consequence, three changes will be made to the starting 11 which opposed Venezuela. The coach has decided to rest goalkeeper Dwayne Miller, who was undoubtedly Jamaica’s best player last Friday night, and inject Duwayne Kerr in goal. He has also replaced Khari Stephenson in central midfield with Damion Williams, while Kavin Bryan will be used as the second striker. He takes the place of Taylor.

“I wouldn’t mind getting in another game or two to give the players a chance to show what they can do, so that we can pick the best possible squad to the Gold Cup,” offered Whitmore ahead of yesterday’s training session at game time.

“But if it doesn’t happen such is life. I think that this being the last game we have a number of things to look at, areas on the field where we have to take note of, such as central midfield, central defence, the right side and even our options in attack.”

He added: “We don’t have a lot of depth in the squad in central defence so this evening (yesterday) we want to look at a few options at training to give us some depth in the game tomorrow (today), so it will definitely be a different formation for this game.”

The game was originally scheduled for Sunday evening at 5:00 pm (6:00 pm Jamaica time), but last week’s fuel tank fire at the Miami International Airport forced a number of cancellations which grounded the Reggae Boyz on Saturday, when they were scheduled to depart the island.

They eventually did on Sunday morning, following the swift intervention of Jamaica Football Federation’s general secretary Horace Reid and his counterpart in El Salvador.

The Boyz left Montego Bay at midnight Saturday and travelled by bus to the Norman Manley International Airport where they departed at six o’clock via Air Jamaica to Fort Lauderdale. They then raced against time to journey by bus to the Miami International Airport and made it just in time to catch their 11:45 am connecting American Airlines flight to San Salvador.

They held a light training session at the Cuscatlan Stadium on Sunday evening, the last quarter hour in almost total darkness, as no lights were provided, but were scheduled to exercise at another venue last evening.

Still, Whitmore was not perturbed by such treatment, and he urged his players to focus on the task at hand.

“We can only get better and every game we play we try to improve over the last game,” he said.

“If we are going to do well at the upcoming Gold Cup and the World Cup qualifiers this is something we will have to look seriously at. We will have to go to places and win games, we can’t concentrate on only winning games in Jamaica. We need to go out there and do ourselves justice.

“I have been saying it and I will continue to say it, we are not only playing in Jamaica. We have to go out there and win three points if we want to be one of the teams seriously vying for a place in the next World Cup.”

Meanwhile, El Salvador’s coach Jose Luiz Rugamas said he has no problems with the postponement of the game from Sunday to today. In fact he believes the postponement gives him more time to prepare.

“We are very happy we have more time to work. We try always to take advantage of each minute and each hour, so that we can apply better our plans,” he said.

The team trained on an artificial turf for two hours on Sunday morning, and welcomed the delay as it gave their injured players more time to recover.

Attacking midfielder Ramon Sanchez is one such player to have benefited from the delay, as he was cut above the right eye, but Luis Anaya is doubtful, as his right knee is swollen with internal inflammation.

He sees today’s contest as vital to his team’s preparation. “Jamaica is a much more difficult rival than the Cuban team,” he said. “We know of their capacity and their speed. It is a team that plays good football,” he said.

The organisers have said that they have no negative feedback with their promoting the new date for the game, and as such they were expecting a huge spectator support.

The squad is completed by Dwayne Miller, Keneil Moodie, Andre Clennon, Richard Edwards, Romario Campbell, Navion Boyd, Xavian Virgo and Khari Stephenson.