Robert decision explained

Last updated : 01 December 2003 By Martyn Elliott

Apparently the Frenchman was considered too weary to play, which made sense until Sir Bobby revealed that the player he replaced him with wasn’t actually match-fit.

"I took him (Robert) off late in the Basel game,” he told the Evening Chronicle.

"He has done very well for us in the last five or six weeks and played most of the time.

"Laurent was very tired after Thursday and he has played brilliantly these last few weeks.

"But I just felt it wasn't his game. I felt we had enough tired legs without Robert.

"I thought I wasn't going to get very much out of him. When he's like that it's best not to play him.

"I thought we would get some up-and-down work from Bowyer but he didn't train last week and that affected him."

It’s fair to say that I’m not a big fan of Robert, but after his displays in the past few weeks it was a disappointment not to see him in action at Molineux, particularly with a full week for him to recover before the Liverpool game.

It seems that a £1million-a-year salary isn’t enough to stop you feeling tired, but given just how poor the winger was in last season’s FA Cup defeat you’d have thought he’d have been desperate for the chance to make amends on Saturday.