With just under an hour of Liverpool‘s opening Champions League group stage game of the season against Ajax, Jurgen Klopp took the brave decision to remove all three of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane from the action at the same time.
None of Liverpool’s formidable front three were carrying any knocks nor were any of them playing especially badly, so it was clear that Klopp’s triple substitution was a premeditated move, presumably to keep them fresh ahead of a hectic run of matches.
It was a calculated gamble by Klopp considering his side were only 1-0 up but ultimately, it worked out well with Liverpool managing to see out the win. It was a roll of the dice that Klopp would be unable to make in the Premier League this season, considering he had already made a change at half-time.
After football in Europe began to return following the first wave of Covid-19, the game’s lawmakers Ifab (International Football Association Board) announced a uniform five-substitution rule across domestic and continental competitions in the interests of player welfare due to a condensed fixture schedule and having to play games in hotter conditions.
Following the conclusion of the 2019-20 campaign, IFAB announced that it would extend the rule for the 2020-21 season too with club fixtures crammed in to ensure that delayed international tournaments will be able to start on their scheduled dates next summer, Covid permitting.
However, Ifab placed the decision to continue with five substitutes in the hands of each individual competition. At the Premier League’s AGM in August, clubs voted overwhelmingly against it and instead reverted to three subs.
A key factor behind the Premier League’s decision to scrap five substitutes was over concerns that bigger clubs with deeper squads would gain an unfair advantage over the rest; Burnley boss Sean Dyche was a vocal critic after Guardiola brought Kevin De Bruyne, Aymeric Laporte, Gabriel Jesus and Leroy Sane on in a 5-0 win against his side in June.
That certainly wasn’t the typical outcome across Europe. Indeed, Europe’s other “big seven” leagues – Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and the Netherlands – all opted to keep the five substitution rule in place this term, as did Uefa for its Champions League, Europa League and Nations League competitions.
Last month, Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin confirmed the organisation’s position, saying: “After representations from clubs and national associations the executive committee approved the use of five substitutions in club and international matches for the rest of the season.”
The decision was endorsed by the world players’ union Fifpro, whose general secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann said: “This is the right decision and a good first step to ease pressure on elite-level players.
“We will continue to push for further innovative ways to reduce their mounting workload and protect their health and performance.”
Klopp was one of the Premier League managers who was most vociferously against cutting the number of substitutes allowed, saying before the start of the season that it would have been “common sense” to keep the rule in place. Pep Guardiola also spoke out by suggesting that players needed greater “protection” due to the crammed-in nature of the calendar.
It was unsurprising, therefore, to hear Klopp praise the rule in the Champions League after substituting five of his starting players with Salah, Mane, Firmino, Curtis Jones and James Milner all making way over the course of 90 minutes against Ajax.
“Game management is one thing, the other thing is using the power of the others,” Klopp said when asked whether Liverpool’s upcoming game against Sheffield United at the weekend had a bearing on his triple substitution decision.
“You saw they [the substitutes] were fresh, they were the hardest-working. It was a bit of a shame Diogo [Jota] didn’t score, Shaq [Xherdan Shaqiri] was lively with unbelievable energy and Taki [Takumi Minamino] is a machine.
“He’s everywhere. He defends like a devil, and then offensively he’s really involved. Nice one-twos together with Diogo on the side where they came in the box. So that helps, obviously. When you can make five changes in midweek games, probably most of the time we will have to do that.”
Klopp was far from the only one to use his full quota of subs in the first matchweek of the Champions League, with 12/32 (37.5 per cent) of managers doing so in total and a further ten using four of their subs.
And as Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting demonstrated when coming on for former club PSG in their Champions League quarter final against Atalanta in August, a fourth or fifth-choice substitute can prove to be the difference-maker.
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