There are some who say the new rule allowing 5 substitutes in the Premier League will favour the bigger clubs, but it seems that Ralph Hasenhuttl is not among them.

When the decision to allow five substitutions in a Premier League match on a permanent basis there were many supporters who claimed that this was a rule that would give the bigger clubs an unfair advantage as they had bigger squads of quality players whereas the smaller clubs would struggle to have enough players of a high standard on the bench to bring on.

An alternative view was that it did favour clubs like Saints as in any match we usually had around five players underperforming so that it was an advantage to us after all.

Either way Ralph Hasenhuttl doesn't agree and seems to think that it is an advantage for his Southampton side, as it enables them to play their high tempo pressing game for longer periods, he has a point there, Saints have for the past couple of seasons been a team that have one of the highest percentages of points dropped from winning positions, many a game has seen us dominate the first half and take the lead only to throw it away in the second half as we start to tire.

That has often been the case in latter parts of games and we also gained a reputation as a side that let in late goals.

The Austrian had this to say in Thursday's press conference:

“It gives you a few more opportunities to change things - the opponent also has. We are trying to play a very intense way of pressing too so it is definitely helpful if you can substitute the two strikers at half-time and bring two fresh ones on. This is definitely something that will happen this season, I don't know how often but it will happen for sure.”

That would seem to indicate that Ralph is set to bring at least one more striker to the club, perhaps two if the rumoured bids for Che Adams are accepted.

I would tend to agree with Ralph on this one, ok the bigger clubs will be able to bring on quality players to replace quality players, but from this respect it won't actually change the standards on the pitch by that much, but in our case it not only enables us to get fresh legs on, but in a bizarre twist, it probably won't actually change our standards either.

Photo: Action Images

A1079 added 08:26 - Aug 5 I am sure I am not alone in seeing a sense of irony in Ralph's comments and support for more substitutions as his use of them and the timing of them thus far has not been his strong point.
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IanRC added 08:54 - Aug 5 Che Adams is coming into his own why sell him when we are desperately short of strikers. Really wish we had sorted out the striker issues earlier in the window.
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saintmark1976 added 09:35 - Aug 5 Even more opportunities for Ralph to do his rabbit in the headlight impressions.
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SAINTSNIL added 10:20 - Aug 5 Great news!! We can substitute even more mediocre players for fresh mediocre ones!👌
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sandywelsh added 12:06 - Aug 5 Thats great news he did not know how to use 3 let alone 5.
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I_would added 13:09 - Aug 5 We'll see the 5 going on at 87 mins, should make all the difference.
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darthvader added 20:07 - Aug 5 Does he know about the rules allowing substitutions before the 81st minute?
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Sadoldgit added 20:05 - Aug 6 The two substitutions at half time today actually made us worse!
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