Follow up question - why select Smeltz and Brockie in the squad and then not start one of them in the second leg if Wood was out? In the first leg Rojas was advanced enough to help Kosta out and it worked ok but with Rojas dropped for Tuiloma Kosta may as well have not been playing for all the use he was as an isolated sole striker. At least Smeltz or Brockie could have had more physical presence to win aerial balls or hold possession long enough for support to arrive.
So even accepting the Wood decision, I think you can still seriously question how we set up in that second leg.
I can't think of a way I would have preferred to set up in Lima, bar selecting Wood. Kosta was supposed to be isolated and to press the ball wide to the fullbacks where we could try to trap them or the wingers, which was a pretty clear defensive tactic over the two legs. We set up to not concede, not to try and score and I genuinely don't believe we had any other options. Starting Brockie/Smeltz hurts our defensive effort more than it helps with our attacking one.
Ok so if you take that view, which is pretty reasonable, you come back to the issue that over 4 years what progress did we actually make when we went into the second leg picking a team that did not actually have a plan to score a goal...did we really make much progress under him?
