Pep Guardiola wants Premier League clubs to reconsider their decision to reject the use of five substitutes in a match this season. Clubs could not agree to implementing the rule for the start of the 2020/21 season after it was temporarily used after Project Restart to finish the last Premier League campaign. The new fixture schedule that has been condensed due to the global pandemic means clubs are facing three fixures every week if they are involved in European competition, and Manchester City boss Guardiola has been a vocal critic of the decision not to allow more substitutes to combat the increased workload on his players.
Pep Guardiola said “Definitely they should, 100 per cent, it’s not about one club. There are statistics that they don’t deny – that in the Premier League players have 47 per cent more muscular injuries than the previous season. Due to no preparation for most of the teams and the amount of games. All the leagues – Germany, Spain, everywhere – is five substitutions to protect the players, not to protect one team. They should [reconsider], hopefully they can reconsider and do what the rest of the world does because we have to adjust to the pandemic situation and other things. The reality is completely different now to before. Intelligent people adjust to the situation in the world – football is about the players. We’ll see. With this amount of games if the manager has to motivate players he is over. They come from inside the desire to play good, help the team, to feel important, to be decisive in every game. This comes inside themselves. We suggest ideas but playing every three days I can’t make a speech to motivate them. They love football to be part of the competitions. When you have talented players it’s the most unpredictable for the opponents. We’ve been together for five years and they understand better. For the new ones, step by step. It’s not exclusive for us, all the teams in Champions League and Europa League. For the teams not in Champions League they have more time to train.”
Guardiola also said that Manchester City will check on Nathan Ake and Gabriel Jesus in training before finalising their plans for Sheffield United.
Pep Guardiola said “They are getting better, now we have the training session, Gabriel and Nathan are getting better. Apart from [Sergio Aguero and Benjamin] Mendy, the others are training. We will see how they feel today.”
