The manager of Liverpool football club Jurgen Klopp has insisted that the five substitutes rule should be maintained to ease the workload on players in the forthcoming 2020-2021 season.
Recall that when the coronavirus pandemic broke out and forced football to a halt in March 2020, world football body, FIFA, advised that organizers of football competitions should adopt the five substitutes rule. This permitted teams to make five substitutions per match instead of the regular three substitutions per match.
Just like other major leagues across Europe that return to football in June, the Premier League adopted the five substitutes rule throughout the remaining fixtures in the 2019-2020 season.
The new rule attracted criticism from different quarters especially from smaller clubs and their fans. Their argument has been that the rule favors the bigger clubs that have more resources to have more big-name players on the bench.
Hence, when the 2019-2020 season ended, the Premier League clubs had to seat to review some of the decisions that were taken prior to the restart of the league. In their attempt to react to the criticism against the five substitutes rule, they voted that the rules should be suspended.
However, the Premier League clubs are expected to meet again this week to review their decision and they could vote to reintroduce the rule or vote for it to remain suspended.
The argument of Jurgen Klopp on the five substitutes rule
Recall that prior to the last meeting of the Premier League club, the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, Jose Mourinho came out to give reasons why the five substitutes rule should remain. Unfortunately for his argument, the clubs thought otherwise and voted against it.
Now, Jurgen Klopp has taken the same route ahead of the clubs’ meeting. The German tactician wants the clubs to have a rethink and vote that the rules should continue in the 2020-2021 season.
The argument of Klopp is that the five substitutes rule would help the club to manage their players who would have 38 Premier League games to play from September 12. He stressed that the rule would help to maintain the performance level of the players.
He said, “I don’t want to have an advantage in the competition or whatever but we have 38 Premier League games and that means just that these things would help.
“I can imagine that other teams will see it differently. It’s all about how we can get through this season, not who can get a little advantage here and there. For the sake of the football players and the performance levels, I think it would make sense.”
Klopp’s argument on international break
After losing to Arsenal in the FA Community Shield on Saturday, Jurgen Klopp expressed his worries over the pressure Liverpool would face in terms of releasing their players for international competitions.
Every department of the club is made of an important player from a national team, hence, the club would have to make do with the burden of releasing the players for their countries every now and then.
In fact, from the 5th of September, national teams, especially in Europe, will be in action less than a week before the Premier League kick-off, the players who are expected to feature for their clubs from September 12, will play for their various countries in the European Nations League between 5th and 8th of September.
Klopp’s fear is that anything can happen to the players during their international engagements which could affect the plans of the club. He lamented that unlike Leeds United that have fewer international players, Liverpool would have just three days to prepare for their first match of the season on September 12 against the newly-promoted Premier League club.
He said, “Now we send our players to the national teams and we have no idea what they will do there. Are we happy about it? No. But we’re not moaning about anything and there is nothing criticizes.
“We will only have three days to prepare for Leeds. They don’t have that many internationals so they train for two weeks. We need to make sure we are ready.”
