Football has never been busier. With few concessions made during a truncated,
Covid-impacted season, players are being exposed to a higher volume of games, as well
as the familiar stresses of trans-continental flights and frequent changes in time zone.
In light of this, many leagues and competitions. across Europe tweaked their laws ahead of 2020-21,
temporarily permitting the use of five substitutions per game. The Premier League,
however, was not among them and, during the most recent international break, England head-coach
Gareth Southgate joined the chorus of voices encouraging the league to reconsider that stance.
Since then, a further vote held in December was unsuccessful,
and was defeated by an unspecified margin, but the issue remains very much on the agenda.
But what is the worth of those extra subs? And what might be their cost
if they were allowed to be more than just a temporary measure?
Most obviously, the added flexibility within games would allow the physical burden to be
shared and the risks of injury and fatigue to be partially alleviated.
During a period when recovery time will often be brief, reducing a player’s
pitch-time is important in limiting exposure to soft-tissue problems and mental burnout.
That argument would clearly have merit under normal conditions, too,
given the perpetual expansion of football’s industrial complex and the conditioning challenges
that poses. Concerns over burnout predate the coronavirus, and they’ll outlive it too.
So far, so obvious then.
When the previous Premier League season returned from its enforced hiatus,
it temporarily adopted the five-substitution law as it rushed to a finish. However,
ahead of the new season, a motion to persist with the change was defeated in August,
with the league’s member clubs voting 11-to-9 against.
And, tellingly, among the nine in support were all six members of the traditional top-six:
Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal. That big-club
backing is descriptive of the advantages that extra substitutions might afford,
and how they could further tilt the Premier League’s competitive balance.
In the plainest terms, a greater range of substitutions benefits those clubs which can
afford to attract and employ the largest and most gifted playing squads – and which, subsequently,
can then involve the greatest number of fresh, high-quality players at critical moments in games.
It’s a disparity which exists already. During the round of Premier League games played during the
first week of November, players introduced from the benches of top-six sides included
Bernardo Silva, Paul Pogba, Xherdan Shaqiri, Jorginho, Giovani Lo Celso and Nicolas Pepe.
More startling still was the range of talent that remained completely unused during those fixtures,
but which might have been deployed if the rules had allowed. Naby Keita, Nathan Ake, Nemanja
Matic, Donnie van de Beek and Antonio Rudiger – among others – all watched on from the stands.
But the bigger problem might be the increased tactical agility. While
having two extra substitutions would allow for enhanced creativity from the technical area,
that wouldn’t be an equal advantage. Just as with players, the finest managers tend
to congregate at the wealthiest clubs, meaning that this enhanced power – the chance to make
more changes mid-game – would be placed in the hands of those who are best placed to use it
and, invariably, who have the more destructive weaponry at their disposal.
Five substitutions could even hasten the dawn of situational football and a more staggered
management of individual games. While three subs provides cover for an injury or two, or a couple
of changes necessitated by the score, five would allow for the redesign of entire departments –
potentially all at once, and often with the capacity to reset that change later in the game.
And, over time and as clubs adapted to that facility and honed their squads accordingly,
the repercussions might be quite dramatic.
They could be seen in quadruple changes of two full backs and two wingers.
Or maybe in the complete refitting of a five-man midfield in one substitution.
Or, more generally, just the overloading of any department with a particular
attribute – height in the attacking zones, for instance, or speed in the channels.
Admittedly, it would create a fascinating new branch of tactical discussion. It would possibly
even lengthen a few careers and create new sub-genres of player – twenty-minute specialists,
for example, or old school enforcing types, brought on to briefly menace an opposition
out of their rhythm before trotting back to the bench with a referee in pursuit.
But therein lies one of the many problems: having five changes available would promote temporary
strategy. It would allow coaches to exert short, sharp periods of stress on their opposition,
but also provide them with the leeway to revert to a more ordinary style once an advantage had
been obtained. If football were egalitarian, that might have some charming novelty. As it is,
it would – again - disproportionately benefit those with the greater resources.
Consider this fictional scenario:
Manchester City are drawing at home to a stubborn, deep-lying opponent with 30 minutes left to play.
(Design note: show this team in a 4-3-3, and then make changes as they’re listed: Ederson;
Walker, Dias, Laporte, Mendy; Fernandinho, Gundogan, De Bruyne; Sterling, Aguero, Silva.)
In search of a goal, Pep Guardiola sends on Gabriel Jesus and Riyad Mahrez in place
of Benjamin Mendy and Ilkay Gundogan, shifting to an ultra-aggressive 3-3-4.
Eventually, the dam breaks, City take the lead and, in pursuit of an equaliser,
their opponents are forced out of their defensive shell and up the pitch. However,
Guardiola has three substitutions left and quickly replaces Raheem Sterling with Rodri
and Sergio Aguero with Joao Cancelo, returning the side to its original, more balanced shape.
With his final change, he is then left with the option of adding a
third centre-back in Nathan Ake, or the counter-attacking threat of Ferran Torres.
Having overloaded to score, City are then able to re-buttress their position and lock the game
up. Fine management, of course, but by the virtue of a tool which is much too impactful.
The problem, then, is self-evident. In the first instance the flexibility is just too great.
In the second, the Premier League’s many inequalities mean that, for the strongest teams,
the power exerted through that flexibility is much too significant.