Ralf Rangnick sees ‘no reason’ why Premier League should not bring back five substitutes rule

Ralf Rangnick has called for the Premier League to allow five substitutions to help deal with the hectic schedule and Covid outbreaks at clubs.

The temporary rule to allow extra changes in a match was announced in May 2020 as football returned from the pandemic, in an attempt to help players cope with the congested fixture list after the shutdown.

While most of Europe’s top leagues still have the five-substitution rule in place, the Premier League reverted back to just three changes, despite several manager criticising the decision.

Rangnick believes that the high number of Covid cases in the league means that the situation is now a similar one to back in 2020, when the rule was first intrdouced.

“As far as I remember it was decided that every team could substitute five players when Covid started one-and-a-half years ago,” Rangnick said.

“I think it was the right decision to have more options to change players to save energy for players, especially if they have just recovered from Covid.

“The same is true right now. We have a similar situation to one-and-a-half years ago, so I see no reason why it shouldn’t be the same now.

“As far as I know in Europe, England is the only country that only allows three subs. In the other four big leagues in Europe you can substitute five players. If you have eight outfield players on the team sheet you should always be able to replace five.

“If you can only replace three of them you will always have five players on the bench who can not play. I think it would be a great help to have five subs, it would increase the emotional situation in the squad.

“It’s about game time. I haven’t spoken with the players about that, but I don’t need to as I know most would be in favour.”

After they had two Premier League matches postponed, Manchester United are back in action on Monday for the first time in 16 days, when they travel to face Newcastle.

Rangnick has won both of his league matches in charge so far, and revealed that the Covid outbreak at United is now behind them as they look forward to getting back on the pich.

“The last training session we had eight outfield players and three goalkeepers and then we closed down the training ground for four days in order to break the chain,” Rangnick said.

“Today was the third day of training this week and we had 25 outfield players. The development of the last week was extremely positive. As far as I could see in training they are all in good shape.

“They did their homework. They all have their schedule to train at home. They stick to that schedule and programme and from what I saw in training most of them - if not all of them - might be available.”