CHANGES will be coming, but Barrow AFC boss Paul Cox will not be rushed into tinkering with his team.

The Bluebirds manager has often spoken this season of the need to rotate his squad to allow for losses of form, injuries and suspensions.

Yet, he is yet to utilise many of the players sitting on the bench or waiting in the wings – with the likes of Ross Hannah, Andy Haworth and Lindon Meikle awaiting their chance.

Cox brought up the possibility of rotation once more after Saturday’s 2-1 win over Solihull , when Barrow failed to build on an early 2-0 lead and found themselves under fire throughout the second half.

But he was wary of making specific suggestions for change, and admitted they would not necessarily arrive either quickly or en-masse.

Realising the need to explain his decisions, Cox said: “People must be wondering about making changes. In the past, I’ve had similar runs, and I’ve tinkered about with it and it has broken.

“Experience tells me that, sometimes, if it’s not broke, then you don’t need to fix it. I know sometimes the engine, as I call it, has stuttered a little bit, but it has never broken.

“I’ve got to be analytical, not of physical fatigue, but I think it’s sometimes mental fatigue, and sometimes the blasé feeling of continuously getting points every week or winning games.

“It’s a hard nut to crack, it’s the psychological aspect of us, and I want to make sure that, when I do make changes, they are being made for the right reasons and we get the right results.

“I’m steering the ship. The group of players – the 11, 12, 13 who have been in around the team – have been excellent. It has been very, very hard for the Ross Hannahs, the Andy Haworths – I left Myles Anderson out on Saturday after I thought he was excellent in the FA Cup – and I’ve had to make some tough decisions. But I’m paid to do that, to keep this ship heading forward.

“At the minute, I’m getting it right. That makes me smile. If I start messing around with it too much – it’s the $64million question – sometimes you can break something when you don’t need to.

“I’ll make the changes made on fitness, the boys’ freshness – not just physically, but mentally – and sometimes it might be a change of system, a tweak to our shape that means one person has to sit on the bench who doesn’t want to.”

Cox admitted there might be the chance some of his squad could be sent out on loan to keep them ticking along, with others given game-time with AFC.

“Part of management is not managing the 11 who are starting consistently at the minute. Part of management is managing the boys who aren’t playing,” added Cox.

“I look round sometimes and I see Ross Hannah on the bench, Andy Haworth, Lindon Meikle, I see Myles Anderson, who has done well, Euan Murray, who came in and didn’t put a foot wrong. It’s managing those people, because they are going to be so important to us.

“Some of them might need to go out and spend a month on loan to freshen them up if they aren’t going to get a game. Some of them might need a run in our side which gives them that little bit of impetus.

“They are going to be so important, especially in the period now where we are going to have so many games. Their professionalism, their desire and hunger to really affect this side is there.

“We saw on Saturday with the three substitutions we made, albeit not giving them a great deal of time, all three (Akil Wright, Haworth and Meikle) went on and really did work extremely hard and affected the game. That’s a massive positive.”