Premier League clubs set to vote for five substitutions per match

Premier League clubs are to again consider the prospect of allowing five substitutions per team within a match, with the change likely to finally be adopted.

Teams have voted against the introduction of five substitutes on three occasions in the past two years, leaving England’s top flight as the only top-level league in Europe where three changes for any team in any give match remains the maximum permitted.

Jürgen Klopp has been among the most vocal critics of the lack of change to the status quo and with the International Football Association Board, the sport’s rule-making body, confirming that the one-time emergency rule has now been made permanent, a possible change is to be put before clubs at a Premier League shareholders meeting on Thursday.

League sources have confirmed the issue is up for debate and it is believed a change in the law could be agreed in principle at the meeting ahead of full implementation next season. After strong resistance over the past two years there is now also a feeling among clubs that the numbers are finally there to authorise a change, with 14 of 20 votes required to put new rules in place.

The row over an expanded subs’ bench cuts to the heart of rivalries among top-flight sides. Klopp, for instance, and has had a habit of contrasting the demands placed on his Liverpool squad with those faced by relegation-threatened Burnley, who are among the clubs thought to have voted against the change.

While smaller clubs believe that more substitutes gives bigger clubs with deeper squads an unfair advantage in individual matches, Klopp points to the harmful effect that not moving from three to five subs has on players who not only are key to their clubs but also to their international sides.