‘I TRUST MY SQUAD’
National senior men’s football team Head Coach Heimir Hallgrímsson says his midfield has enough depth and experience in spite of its age.
Hallgrímsson has trusted Joel Latibeaudiere in the midfield since his inclusion in the Concacaf Gold Cup last summer and in that time he has been partnered with Kevon Lambert and recent debutant Kasey Palmer to serve as centre midfielders.
Lambert was replaced by Palmer in the starting line-up in Jamaica’s two Concacaf Nations League games so far and fans and pundits have criticised Hallgrímsson’s selections saying that there is less control in the middle of the park, due to a lack of experience in the Latibeaudiere-Palmer partnership.
Hallgrímsson has also been criticised for leaving Daniel Johnson on the bench and only using him as a late substitute in all of these games.
Palmer has been left out of Jamaica’s squad to face Grenada and Haiti over the next week because of injury and replaced by 19-year-old Karoy Anderson.
But Hallgrímsson, who did not say whether Anderson would start any of these games, says he is confident in not only his ability but also that of the rest of the squad and that they possess the needed experience for these games.
“The squad we selected is the best squad for these games,” Hallgrímsson said recently. “That goes for all the questions about why this or that guy is not here.
“We have quite a versatile group of players who can move around and play in more positions than one. That is a benefit to a small nation like Jamaica to have many players in the squad who can play more than one position. In our minds, we have solutions to the issue of experience in midfield within the squad. We decided to go with a young player for the future to look at for this camp because I feel we can manage this with the players that we have.”
The Reggae Boyz meet Grenada at the Kirani James Athletic Stadium in St George on Thursday at 6:00 pm Jamaica time, then face Haiti at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad on Sunday at 7:00 pm Jamaica time. The Haitians are playing their home games in other territories because of violence in their homeland.
