The Daily Telegraph report that Premier League clubs will be allowed to field seven substitutes from the start of next season. It doesn’t seem that long ago that teams were only permitted to have three players on the bench, although this has since increased to five and now goes up even further. Manchester City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson is pleased with the change.
In November, Eriksson said: When you have say 23 players, who are working hard, it is bad when you have to omit them on match day.
“Everyone wants to be on the pitch but it would help if we could change the rules on substitutes.
“If we could have seven players on the bench, it would be much better.”
Clubs are already allowed to field this many subs for Champions League matches and there seems little harm in each manager having more options on the bench. This will hopefully give young English players more of an opportunity to experience first-team action.