During Covid-19 restrictions, clubs were allowed to extend the number of substitutes they had to five to protect players from burn out after restrictions in pre-season training affect the level of intensity that the could train at.
It’s a measure that has been continued with in the SPFL and across the continent and one that not every club has got to grips with yet in terms of how to design their tactics. Go Radio pundit, Tam McManus claiming that it only benefits the big clubs – and he couldn’t be more wrong.
Take St Johnstone as an example.
The success rate of teams that sit in and defend at Ibrox is incredibly low compared to the number of teams that attempt it, any mathematician without an interest in football would be able to advise against it such are the chances of it actually working.
When rugby allowed extra subs there was a change in how coaches approached the game – tactics were adapted to have “starters” and “finishers” with pre-determined replacements coming on at specific times and the speed of the game has improved as a result.
Five subs allows football managers to do this as well, not every change has to be one that is pre-set. For example, you could have almost the whole midfield and forward line running themselves into the ground for 55-60 minutes, pressing high up and with greater intensity knowing that you can bring on another group of players to do the same for 30 minutes.
And yet we continue to see the same tactics every week from Livingston, Kilmarnock and now St Johnstone.
The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result but this is exactly what most SPFL managers are doing, maybe one of them will realise that the extra subs doesn’t have to just benefit those with big squads and deep pockets.