Five substitutes from seven substitutes: potentially a hindrance?

[Tac-tics]

Five substitutes from seven substitutes: potentially a hindrance?

After Nigel Adkins has revealed that Southampton unsuccessfully voted for seven available substitutes, could this league ruling have been a potential progression for youth development?

Obviously, there will be a few downsides to this argument such as the expenditure for bonuses (team win bonuses, appearance fee etc) which are all controlled on a club basis.

With the FA desperately attempting to restructure youth development from grassroots level all the way up to the re categorisation of Premier League and Football League academies, ETC’s and centres of excellence. Surely this would of been a huge opportunity for those football clubs that aren’t in a position to fill a whole match day squad with ‘first team professionals’ to start introducing achievers of the under eighteens?

Unfortunately, as a case that is on my door step Portsmouth FC is a prime example. In their Carling Cup fixture in which the suffered defeat to League Two Barnet, Steve Cotterill only named three substitutes. Now this has been a frequent occurrence over the past twelve months for Pompey. Granted, Portsmouth’s academy hasn’t frequently produced top tier professionals, only Gary O’Neil, Marc Wilson, Asmir Begovic spring to mind, with not all three of these being school boys at the club.

However, there have been individuals that have made the professional cut, albeit at lower league level: Matt Ritchie currently playing at Swindon and Marlon Pack with Cheltenham. They also currently have a central defender in their ranks who is the current under seventeen England Captain who goes by the name of Sam Magri. He has been watched by the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and even Bayern Munich and was deemed good enough to man mark Fernando Torres for 35 minutes in Portsmouth’s recent friendly with Chelsea but not good enough to make the deprived bench at Fratton Park?

Surely, when you cannot fill the bench, encourage a few youth players to experience match day preparation and actually have a couple of extra bodies available for selection by the management, than not have anyone available at all.

Whether its Portsmouth struggling to name a bench or Dagenham and Redbridge, the academy players must have some sort of pedigree to be there in the first place, so why aren’t clubs using the seven substitutes ruling?

Your thoughts people?

[Tac-tics]

Apologies about the lay out, it will not allow me to edit it.

[jawillwill]

It's stupid. I understand it's supposed to benefit the smaller clubs who have smaller squads, but there's no rule which says they have to have the bench full - as Pompey will vouch for. All it does is hinder clubs trying to give youth players a bit of experience on the bench.

[The Kraken]

It's stupid. I understand it's supposed to benefit the smaller clubs who have smaller squads, but there's no rule which says they have to have the bench full - as Pompey will vouch for. All it does is hinder clubs trying to give youth players a bit of experience on the bench.

 

Potentially it does, but if you have a look back at a few of the sqauds from last season, we rarely had more than 1 or 2 of the youth teamers on the bench. Often we had none and it was full with squad members. Pompey massively struggled last year, and still are for squad numbers, yet Clotterill still has empty spaces in the bench rather than name youth team players.

 

Football is (supposedly) trying to get its house in order and get costs under control. We're looking at this from a Saints perspective alone, where we're more financially secure perhaps than ever before. And we have the type of squad where we could quite easily name 11 subs without hitting into the youth team, so the youth team argument doesn't quite work for us.

 

Personally I don't believe this rule will make any difference at all in the long run, aside from perhaps giving managers more of a headache as to who to leave out from a matchday squad. However, it could have the effect that it (ever so slightly) marginalises the impact that the richer clubs can have by naming a hugely strong squad's bench, which could enrich competition in the league, in theory.

 

But as I said, I don't really think it will cause much significant difference at all.

[The9]

Absolutely a hindrance to a team with at least 11 fully competent subs, we had this discussion when the decision was first made.

 

It's fairly surprising that they would actually have gone to 7 subs in the first place, no doubt prompted by FIFA's "entire squad named as subs" ruling from the World Cup, but to do it and then pull back from it when it was clearly working is staggering.

 

About the only justification for it is that some teams can't afford to put that many players on the bench, but no-one is making them do that anyway, and they can throw a couple of kids on there to make up the numbers if they really want to. For those arguing that it's harming players to be sat on the bench and not playing for the reserves / development side, I say that it's for the club to decide how best to develop their players.

 

I can see it being detrimental to fringe players with a single fixed position, but more tactically flexible fringe players will benefit by being able to cover more than one position. Teams coped back when there were no subs and then only one or two, provided the unfairness of playing shorthanded due to injuries is addressed and its the same for everyone, I'm not really that bothered.

[Saint Martini]

5 subs does seem very little and as a coach it means you have to make some tough decisions before the match. Do you take an extra goalie, do you take a winger, wing back, central midfielder/defender, etc. With 5 subs there will always be a position that is not covered properly in case of an injury. Just because of that I'd say 7 subs is preferable. But that does ofcourse favour bigger teams with large squads. So why not have a rule that you have a system where you have 5 regular subs and 2 youth players (U20 with at least 2 years at the club before the age of 18). That would encourage teams to first of all produce good quality players from their own academy and secondly it gives these players the possibility to get a taste of action if they are good enough (or if the score allows it).

[dellboypete]

This was decided at the Football League meeting last month (as also mentioned on here somewhere else). The majority of Championship clubs wanted to retain the 7 subs but were out voted by the league 1 & 2 clubs. In hindsight the recommendation should have been, for example, 7 in the championship and 5 in the other two which would probably have been accepted.

 

I can understand the majority of Lge 1 & 2 clubs (+ p**py) wanting 5 subs as some of them are really stretched, but themajority of Championship clubs are really trying to aspire to being Premier Div 2.

[saint.tom.clancy]

Think its a bit stupid to be honest. If a team can't afford, or doesn't have the numbers to name 7 subs, then thats their problem. I don't see why they should have a say in how many we can name. At worst there should be a ruling where if you want 7 subs, then say 2 should be from the youth set up, and not just under 21, but actually been brought through the club.

[SamKimish]

Think its a bit stupid to be honest. If a team can't afford, or doesn't have the numbers to name 7 subs, then thats their problem. I don't see why they should have a say in how many we can name. At worst there should be a ruling where if you want 7 subs, then say 2 should be from the youth set up, and not just under 21, but actually been brought through the club.

 

Chris Kamara and a group of Championship managers have got together recently to try and put a similar rule to the Football League to see if they will allow it. Makes complete sense if you ask me.